Kutani Cup & Saucer — Honkin Hanazume Real Gold Millefleur Ø8 × H6.5 cm

Kutani "Honkin Hanazume" Real-Gold Millefleur Cup & Saucer — Western-Form Tea / Coffee Pair (Ø 8 × H 6.5 cm, saucer Ø 15 cm)

A two-piece Kutani-yaki cup-and-saucer set decorated in 本金花詰 (honkin hanazume) — the supplier's name for the kiln's most demanding gold-ground floral idiom. The 本金 (honkin) prefix specifically denotes pure / 24-karat-grade gold used in the gilding (a step above lower-grade gold inks used in entry-tier kinhanazume pieces); the hanazume technique itself is one of Kutani's most labour-intensive — wall-to-wall floral packing with gilded line-fill in every empty space, leaving no negative ground anywhere on the cup exterior.

The decoration

On the cup, the gold-line teal-and-grey ground holds a tight all-over garden:

• Yellow azalea-like blossoms with gilded petal veins
• Raised-slip white chrysanthemums and daisies (the white bosses sit slightly proud of the surface)
• Pink star-flowers and blue chrysanthemum medallions
• Purple and green smaller florets stitched in between
• Tiny gilded leaves and stem-lines threading the whole composition together

The cup handle is a solid honkin-gold overglaze loop — full-coverage gold on the entire arc. The saucer is left plain white porcelain with a thin gold rim band, so the cup itself reads as the focal point of the pair.

Both pieces carry the same red square three-kanji seal on the foot (visible in the bottom photos) — matched-set provenance proof.

Form & use

A Western-style cup-and-saucer (kappu & sōsā) pair: slightly flared cup with a broad rim, tall gold loop handle, on a wide circular saucer. Cup is Ø 8 × H 6.5 cm (≈ 3.15 × 2.56 in); saucer is Ø 15 cm (≈ 5.91 in). Cup volume comfortably accepts ~150–180 ml (approximate, not supplier-stated) — suited to a single coffee, espresso lungo, hojicha, Japanese-style milk tea, or matcha-au-lait. Equally a display piece on a curio shelf — the cup interior is intentionally plain so the painted exterior reads from any angle.

Care

The supplier does not specify microwave or dishwasher use, and the all-over gold ground + solid-gold handle make this set absolutely incompatible with microwave — metal will arc, and the honkin gilding will not survive heat cycling. We recommend hand-wash only: warm water, mild soap, soft cloth, rinse and towel-dry promptly. Avoid abrasive sponges and any detergent that could lift the gold. Because the decoration is laid by hand, slight variations in floret colour density and gold-line coverage are part of how honkin hanazume is made.

• Made by Kutani-yaki / via Tojudo in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, curated by ZenKiln.