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Side view of the Tsukamoto Mashiko ware soup cup in amber glaze, showing a wide rounded form with a loop handle, glaze transitioning from pale cream at the rim through golden amber to rosy brown at the base, with fine crazing across the surface.
Tsukamoto Mashiko Ware Traditional Glaze Soup Cup Amber
Tsukamoto

Tsukamoto Mashiko Ware Traditional Glaze Soup Cup Amber

Sale price$59.00

Tsukamoto was founded in Mashiko in 1864 by first-generation Rihei Tsukamoto, making it the town's oldest and largest kiln. Mashiko itself became one of Japan's most significant pottery centers in 1924 when Shoji Hamada, later designated a Living National Treasure, established his workshop there and brought the Mingei folk craft philosophy to its clay. The tradition Tsukamoto has carried across more than 150 years is one of vessels made for use — unpretentious, grounded in local materials, shaped for the table rather than the display shelf. This soup cup carries a traditional Mashiko amber glaze that moves from pale cream at the rim through warm golden amber to a deeper rosy brown toward the base, the tonal shift developing through firing rather than application. Fine crazing runs across the surface — a characteristic of traditional Mashiko glazework, the fine lines appearing as the glaze cools and contracts at a different rate from the clay beneath. The form is wide and rounded, shallow enough to hold soup without weight, deep enough to keep it warm.
Side view of the Tsukamoto Mashiko ware soup cup in amber glaze, showing a wide rounded form with a loop handle, glaze transitioning from pale cream at the rim through golden amber to rosy brown at the base, with fine crazing across the surface.
Tsukamoto Mashiko Ware Traditional Glaze Soup Cup Amber Sale price$59.00

Meet the Artisan

Tsukamoto

Tsukamoto was founded in March 1864 by Tsukamoto Rihei, just 11 years after Otsuka Keisaburo established the first Mashiko kiln, making it one of the oldest continuously operating kilns in the tradition. The 2nd generation organized the first trade association among Mashiko potters, secured rights to clay-bearing land essential for regional production, and extended distribution into the Tokyo and Tohoku markets. The 3rd generation expanded further during the 1928 transition, and when the 4th generation Tsukamoto Takeshi founded the Tochigi Prefecture Ceramic Cooperative in 1950, his wife Shige proved decisive at a moment of postwar crisis. As demand for ceramic household goods collapsed in the 1950s, she developed a single-serve ceramic vessel for cooking rice and pursued its adoption until 1958, when it was taken up by Oginoya, the bento vendor at Yokokawa Station in Gunma Prefecture, as the container for their Toge no Kamameshi box lunch. The product became nationally famous and is credited with rescuing Mashiko's postwar ceramic industry. In 1955, Tsukamoto also established a residency program for apprentice potters that ran until 1993, training many of the independent ceramic artists who went on to define Mashiko as a town of individual makers. The kiln has been producing Mashiko ware continuously for over 160 years and remains one of the tradition's most significant kilns.