Busho Kiriko

Satsuma kiriko traces to 1846, when the Shimazu clan's 27th daimyo, Narioki, invited the Edo glassmaker Shihon Kamejiro to establish glass production in Kagoshima; his successor, Shimazu Nariakira, expanded it as part of the Shuseikan industrial modernization program before the craft's original workshops were destroyed in the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion. Busho Kiriko, working under the name Shoho in Kagoshima, works in that revived tradition, cutting crystal glass with a 24-25% lead content prized for its clarity and sparkle into faceted geometric patterns by hand. The studio's artist has represented the craft internationally, with work selected for presentation by Japanese embassies in France in 2015 and Mauritius in 2017, and received the Kagin Cultural Foundation Award in 2018. The catalogue runs from sake glasses, tumblers and rock glasses to decanters, serving dishes and tea-ceremony implements, each piece cut to order rather than mass-produced from a fixed mold. Busho Kiriko also runs hands-on cutting workshops, letting visitors learn the technique directly from working artisans and take home a piece they cut themselves — sessions the studio notes tend to book out quickly. It's a craft with a real gap in its history, reintroduced rather than continuously practiced, now carried by a studio active on an international stage.