What I look for

Nothing reaches the storehouse without passing a few tests. They are not always the obvious ones.

Whether it was made with care

You can usually tell from the parts nobody was meant to see — the underside of a bowl, the inside of a lid. Care shows where it was not required. A maker who finished the hidden surfaces to the same standard as the visible ones was not performing for anybody. That is the tell.

Whether it has been used, and whether the use has left it better

Many Japanese objects are made to change with handling. Lacquer deepens. Iron settles. A wooden handle takes the shape of the hand that held it. A thing that has been lived with is not a lesser thing — in a good piece, the years are part of the finish rather than damage to it.

Whether it comes with its box

A wooden box — tomobako — often carries the maker's name and seal, brushed on the lid or inside it. It tells you the piece was thought worth keeping, by someone who knew. Not every good object has one, and a box on its own proves nothing. But when box and object have stayed together for eighty years, somebody was paying attention the whole time.

What this does not require of you

None of this asks you to know anything in advance. You do not need to recognise a kiln or read a signature. Turn the piece over. Open the lid. Feel the weight. The questions are the same whatever the object is, and they are questions anyone can ask.

See what is currently resting in the storehouse →

Inside the Kura — a free guide, 56 pages, to fourteen kinds of Japanese antique and what to look at in each. Read it here.

Every other week I write about one object — where it came from, how it was made, and what to look at. And now and then, when there is something worth sending on its own, a letter comes in between.