Makabe Ishidoro

White granite, soft carving

Makabe lanterns are cut from Makabe mikage granite, quarried from Mt Kaba, with a bright white tone. The carving is soft, delicate and elegant, yet the lanterns have real weight. As moss grows on them their character deepens, lending grace to a Japanese garden. There are several hundred traditional forms. It is made in Sakuragawa in Ibaraki.

Marked, chiselled, fitted

• Lines where the carving changes are marked on the raw stone with a carpenter's square, a step called sumidashi.
• The stone is shaped with traditional tools: nomi chisels, the koyasuke hammer-chisel and the bishan bush hammer.
• Surfaces are finished by chisel, bishan or tataki texturing.
• Parts are joined with tenons, except above and below the light chamber, to keep the lantern balanced.

Granite and Buddhas

Makabe has good granite and has long shaped stone for daily life. Its stone trade is said to have begun with Buddhist stone carving around Nagaoka in Makabe at the end of the Muromachi period. The oldest confirmed Makabe lantern, made in 1824, stands in a temple in Makabe, and its mason set the techniques still used.