Kutani Kinhanazume Mokkō-Gata Serving Bowl — Tenzan Kiln Gold Millefleur Ø 19 × H 5.2 cm (2025, keshōbako)
A hand-painted Kutani-yaki serving bowl from Tenzan Kiln (九谷 天山 / Tenzan-gama), Ishikawa Prefecture. The bowl is shaped as a soft mokkō-gata (木瓜形 / four-lobed quatrefoil) and decorated entirely in the kiln's signature 金花詰 (kinhanazume) idiom — "gold-filled with flowers" — where chrysanthemums, peonies, sakura, daisies, and cobalt-blue butterflies cover the entire surface, wall-to-wall, set into a luminous gold ground with no negative space.
The kinhanazume technique
Kinhanazume / hanazume is one of Kutani's most demanding decorative traditions. Each tiny floret is outlined first in iron-red enamel, then filled with polychrome — pink, purple, white, vermilion, green, orange — and surrounded by hairline gilded petal-veins. The large white chrysanthemums are built up in raised slip (盛り絵 / mori-e), so the petals catch light from the side as bosses of low relief. The deep cobalt-blue butterflies use one of Kutani's classic five-color enamels (赤・緑・黄・紫・紺青 — the gosai palette). The cumulative effect is jewel-like density: hundreds of flowers in a single small bowl.
Form & use
A 6号 (6-gō, a Japanese catalogue size label — not a centimetre measurement) shallow mokkō-gata bowl: Diameter 19 cm × Height 5.2 cm (≈ 7.48 × 2.05 in). The flat shallow form belongs to the kashiki (菓子器 / sweets-tray) family — well-suited for serving wagashi (Japanese tea sweets), assorted dried fruits, small confections, mints, or a single piece of fruit at a kaiseki course. Equally at home as a jewellery valet on a vanity, a key dish in an entry, or a display piece on a shelf where the gold rim can catch the light.
Box & cert
Arrives in a 化粧箱入 (keshōbako) — a KUTANI-branded gift presentation box (photographed in the listing) — and carries a Kutani-yaki cooperative gold round cert sticker on the foot well, together with the kiln's red 九谷 天山 square seal in red brush (visible in the bottom photo).
Care
Microwave and dishwasher use is not specified, and the heavy gold rim, gold-ground gilding, and overglaze enamel mean that this piece is hand-wash only. Use warm water and a soft cloth; avoid abrasive sponges and any detergent that could lift the gold. Microwave is not recommended on any gold-decorated porcelain — the gold will scorch and may arc. Each piece is decorated by hand, so slight variations in flower placement, gilding density, and the wave of the mokkō-gata lobes are part of how this technique is made.
• Made by Tenzan Kiln / Kutani-yaki in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, curated by ZenKiln.
