Traditional craft
Tokoname Yaki
常滑焼
Red-brown pottery from Tokoname in Aichi, one of Japan's Six Old Kilns, known for teapots, big jars and hand-coiled vessels.
Key facts
- Officially recognised
- 2 June 1976
- Type
- Ceramics
- Region
- Chubu
- Official name in Japanese
- 常滑焼
- Official area (in Japanese)
- 常滑市、半田市、知多市
Red clay, 900 years of kilns
Tokoname is one of the Six Old Kilns of Japan. Its trademark is the iron in the clay, which fires to a warm red. Some pieces show the bare clay, others are glazed. It is made in Tokoname, Handa and Chita in Aichi, as tea ware, vases, ornaments, plant pots and large jars.
The human potter's wheel
Tokoname clay is sticky and very fine, so pieces can be carved and polished smooth. Potters use the wheel, press moulds and hand-building. Hand-building is the oldest method here and rare elsewhere in Japan. In yoriko-zukuri, the potter walks quickly around the piece, coiling thick ropes of clay upward, acting as a human wheel.
Sutra jars, tea ware and clay pipes
Tokoname's roots go back to the late Heian period, when it made jars for burying Buddhist sutras. In the Muromachi and Momoyama periods it made tea and flower ware, then large jars until the mid-Edo period, and daily ware after that. From the Meiji period it also produced clay pipes, sanitary ware, tiles and plant pots. Rich local clay let it change products with the times.
Good to know
- A red Tokoname teapot (kyusu) is the classic souvenir from this pottery town.
- Old Tokoname jars turn up in surprising places: a suikinkutsu, the buried water-harp in a Japanese garden, at the old Imai house in Mino, Gifu, was restored with one.
Questions travellers ask
What are Japan's Six Old Kilns?
Six pottery areas with roots in the medieval period; Tokoname is one of them.
Why is Tokoname ware red?
The iron in the local clay fires to a red colour.
Where it comes from
More crafts from the same area
Local foods from the same area
Heritage stories from the same area
Sources
We checked the facts on this page against these sources.