MEET IT IN 30 SECONDS
江戸切子
Edo kiriko is a cut-glass craft associated with Tokyo and its surroundings. Makers cut patterns into a formed glass vessel and polish the surfaces. Both clear and colour-overlaid glass are used, with changing vessel shapes and designs.
Materials include crystal and soda-lime glass. In overlaid glass, cutting through a thin coloured layer exposes the clear glass beneath. Tokyo’s craft guide describes a colour layer under roughly one millimetre as characteristic of Edo kiriko. Clear vessels also reveal patterns through their reflective cut surfaces.
Yarai uses crossing diagonal lines. Nanako, literally fish eggs, produces closely repeated bead-like facets. Kiku-tsunagi links radiating chrysanthemum forms. These names refer to familiar shapes; a vessel may combine them or incorporate a workshop’s original design.
A decorative plate by Hanashyo’s third-generation maker Kumakura Takayuki appeared in the 2022 Edo Tokyo Kirari exhibition. Dense cuts occupy its broad rim, while curved lines and larger clear areas organize the centre. Start with the circular outline, then compare rim and centre: the cutting is arranged for the vessel’s shape. A plate displayed for viewing presents its pattern differently from a drinking glass held in the hand.
The cooperative’s process begins with waridashi: guide marks divide the vessel and establish the placement of cuts. The vessel already has its shape. Making the glass blank and cutting its surface are connected but distinct tasks.
Arazuri establishes the main cuts with a diamond wheel, followed by finer sanban-gake work to refine them and add detail. The maker changes the vessel’s angle against the rotating wheel. The cooperative illustrates present-day wheel cutting; early work and later imported wheel techniques belong to different historical stages.
Ishi-gake smooths the cut surfaces before polishing with such tools as wooden wheels and polishing powder. A soft buffing wheel completes the illustrated sequence. The cooperative also notes acid-polishing methods, so individual products do not all follow an identical finishing route.
Follow the overlaid vessel through the process. Uncut areas retain the outer colour; cuts passing through that thin layer expose clear glass beneath. A freshly cut surface still needs finer grinding and polishing to become bright and transparent. Colour contrast depends on where the layer remains or is removed, while the cut surface’s finish also depends on later work.
The 2022 exhibition presented an old-fashioned glass in five stages. Among the glasses visible in the photograph’s foreground, some retain layout marks and others have cut patterns. Compare these with the marking, cutting and polishing processes above.
Tokyo’s craft guide contrasts Edo kiriko’s thin coloured overlay and sharply defined cuts with the thicker overlay used for Satsuma kiriko’s gradated bokashi effect. Colour-layer thickness and cutting affect appearance. The distinction is not simply coloured Satsuma versus clear Edo glass: Edo kiriko also uses coloured overlays.
The cooperative traces the craft’s beginning to an account of Kagaya Kyūbei cutting glass with abrasive powder in Ōdenmachō in 1834. It presents this as a transmitted origin account. Early clear-glass work later combined with imported wheel-cutting techniques and new materials.
The Shinagawa glassworks of 1873 marks an important stage in industrial glassmaking. British cut-glass specialist Emanuel Hauptmann provided instruction in 1881. These are separate milestones. Workshop apprenticeships carried techniques onward: Kobayashi’s founder entered Tokumatsu Ōhashi’s workshop in 1908.
Through Taishō and early Shōwa, improvements in glass, cutting and polishing supported tableware, vases and other objects. Tokyo’s guide identifies around 1940 as a prewar high point. The craft developed through industrial production and urban consumption, with uses well beyond one type of drinking glass.
In a 1994 recollection, Kiyoko Shimizu described wartime work on military glass, including aircraft windows, and apprentices who did not return from service. After the war, the workshop cut Coca-Cola bottles into cups, then worked on HOYA tableware for occupation households. Employment expanded during economic growth. This is one workshop’s account of disruption and recovery.
Hanashyo dates its Kameido workshop to Mokichi Kumakura’s founding in 1946. Export subcontracting later gave way to direct sales and original patterns in the 1990s. Tokyo’s 1985 and the national government’s 2002 craft designations added public recognition. Workshops continue through apprenticeship, exhibitions, sales and new designs.
After the glass vessel has been formed.
It exposes clear glass beneath the coloured layer.
Repeated facets resemble fish eggs.
The Shinagawa glassworks opened, then Hauptmann provided instruction.
It moved toward direct sales and original designs after export subcontracting.
To see how cutting is arranged across the vessel’s form, rather than identifying an isolated motif.
Exposing clear glass is one step; later work makes the cut surface smooth, bright and transparent.
