• Free Returns

    On all UK orders

  • Shipping Duty & Taxes Paid

    EU & Norway

  • Shipping Duty & Taxes Paid

    USA, Australia, Canada, Singapore

We will shortly be on our annual trip to Japan. Orders placed after Sunday 26th July will be shipped at the beginning of September.

Bespoke shade orders placed after the 12th of July will ship in mid-September.

Crushed Gourd Vase

£6400

This vase is in Maruta san's normal "Kushime Yohen" unglazed style, which reveals the natural beauty of the clay and its colouration in the kiln. The shape was thrown first and then scored and slightly deformed before firing.

Hand-thrown, wood-fired noborigama, from the Jugomori Kiln in the village of Hoshino on Kyushu island

  • 12.0cm High, 9.0cm Wide, 9.0cm Long
  • Stoneware (please see the Care Guide below)
  • Handwash only please
  • Please do not microwave

Returns & Refunds

Free returns within the UK

All damage must be reported to us within 14 days of receiving the package

Full delivery and returns policy is here

Care Guide

Like all tableware and handmade homewares, our products should be used with some degree of care to help keep them looking good. By virtue of their traditional hand-crafted techniques some may be a bit more delicate than your average homewares and depending on their material, whether wood fired earthenware or traditional Japanese lacquer, you may need to take extra care when using and washing our products. 

All Hoshino products are stoneware and if they are glazed, they are dishwasher safe. Even as stoneware, we recommend that you are careful using these with very strong staining foods, such as beetroot or raw turmeric.

The unglazed (yakishime) vases are all unglazed and lined with a sealant. Very occasionally the sealant doesn't cover the vase properly and the vase can leak or get damp spots. For some, this is included in the Beauty of Imperfection, but understandably, for others this crosses the line to a fault! If this happens to you, please get in touch and we can mend the vase.

Meet the Maker:

Hoshino Kiln

We first came across Maruta san when we were taking our children up to the local onsen in Hoshino village after hunting for fireflies. With no internet and only a little shop front, he is happy to live a simple life up in the hills. The Jugomori Kiln was founded by Maruta san and he started to focus on reviving the Hoshino yaki style famous for yuhi yaki (Sunset colour), which was lost in the mid 19th Century. Hoshino village flourished as a tea-growing village so making tea caddies was also a part of village industry. However, from all this traditional industry, now only three kilns including Jugomori Kiln are left in this village.

Maruta san focuses on kushime yohen: kushime means comb-marks and yohen means making colour in the kiln (which implies colour outside of the craftsman’s control). Maruta san influences the rainbow colour by choosing the right clay, placing his works in a certain position in the kiln and putting straw around the works before firing. However, how the colour ends up relies only on the movement of ash and fire in the kiln. His pieces are unglazed (yakishime) and this rainbow colour is the colour Nature makes, and represents the earth itself. Therefore, the defect rate is also high, only works that can survive the kiln end up on the shelves.

See more from this Maker