Kintsugi

Repair work (right) on Mishima ware hakeme-type tea bowl with kintsugi gold lacquer, 16th century

Kintsugi (金継ぎ, meaning "golden joinery"), also called kintsukuroi (金繕い, "golden repair"), is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, kintsugi treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, instead of something to hide.^[1] This is similar to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi.

Kintsugi Media

Small repair (top) on Nabeshima ware dish with hollyhock design, over-glaze enamel, 18th century, Edo period
Nanking reticulated basket, c. 1750, mended with metal staples

Related pages

References

↑ Richman-Abdou, Kelly. Kintsugi: The Centuries-Old Art of Repairing Broken Pottery with Gold (in en). My Modern Met (2024-09-21). Retrieved 2025-11-25.

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[1] Richman-Abdou, Kelly. Kintsugi: The Centuries-Old Art of Repairing Broken Pottery with Gold (in en). My Modern Met (2024-09-21). Retrieved 2025-11-25.

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