Traditional craft
Hakone Yosegi Zaiku
箱根寄木細工
Geometric wood mosaic made from the natural colours of Hakone's many trees, used on boxes, small chests and tea saucers.
Key facts
- Officially recognised
- 31 May 1984
- Type
- Wood and bamboo
- Region
- Kanto
- Official name in Japanese
- 箱根寄木細工
- Official area (in Japanese)
- 小田原市、足柄下郡箱根町
Patterns from natural wood
The Hakone mountains are among Japan's richest areas for tree species. Hakone Yosegi Zaiku uses that variety, combining woods of different natural colours into geometric patterns with no dye. Hakone is the only place in Japan that makes it. It is made in Hakone and Odawara in Kanagawa as boxes, drawers, small chests, tea saucers and accessories.
Blocks, slices and paper-thin sheets
- Many pieces of wood are cut to exact shapes and glued into a unit pattern.
- The unit pattern is sliced and the slices are glued together into a seed block.
- A special plane shaves the seed board into paper-thin sheets.
- These sheets, called zuku, are glued onto boxes and other woodwork as decoration.
From Hatajuku
Hakone Yosegi Zaiku began in the late Edo period at Hatajuku on Mt Hakone, and its founder is said to be Ishikawa Nihei (1790 to 1850). Early pieces used random patterns or single motifs. In the early Meiji period techniques from the Shizuoka area arrived, creating today's ko-yosegi of small, repeating patterns. Siebold's 1826 account of his journey to Edo notes yosegi on furniture, so it was once a luxury craft.
Good to know
- Hatajuku, on the old Hakone road, is where the craft began and still has workshops.
- Every colour in the pattern is natural wood; nothing is dyed.
Questions travellers ask
Is the colour painted on?
No. Every colour comes from a different natural wood.
What is zuku?
Paper-thin sheets shaved from the patterned block and glued onto boxes and other items.
Where it comes from
More crafts from the same area
Heritage stories from the same area
Sources
We checked the facts on this page against these sources.