Kintsugi: How to Repair Pottery With Gold (and Why)

When a piece breaks, most cultures throw it away. Breaking is the end — that is the assumption. And in an age of mass production and mass consumption, using something and disposing of it is simply normal.

In Japan, though, breaking can sometimes be a beginning.

Kintsugi is the traditional Japanese technique of joining and repairing broken ceramics with lacquer and gold powder (or silver, or tin). The repair is not hidden; it is made prominent in gold. The line of the break shines across the surface as a gold seam. The philosophy holds that a repaired piece is more beautiful than it was before it broke, and that it now carries more of a story.

This is not merely a repair technique. It accepts the history of damage in a piece as beauty and raises it up. It is a cultural practice that embodies the core of the Japanese aesthetic. This guide looks at the history of kintsugi and at what makes it compelling.

The History of Kintsugi

Kintsugi is said to have begun in Japan around the fifteenth century. A culture of repairing broken things goes back much further — evidence survives from the Jomon period, when stone spearheads that had broken were repaired with lacquer. That practice evolved, and decorating the repair with gold powder began in the fifteenth century.

The most famous origin story concerns the shogun of the time, Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1436–1490).

A treasured Chinese tea bowl of his had broken, and Yoshimasa sent it back to China for repair. What came back had been fixed with the Chinese technique of metal staples. Practical, certainly — but the large clamps across the repair drew the eye, and the result did not satisfy Yoshimasa's sense of beauty.

So he asked Japanese craftspeople for a more beautiful method of repair. The legend holds that kintsugi is what emerged.

From there, kintsugi developed alongside the spirit of Japanese tea. As wabi-cha — a quiet, deliberately imperfect way of tea rather than a splendid, perfect one — and the spirit of wabi-sabi took shape, kintsugi became widely known through the beauty of accepting imperfection. Some tea practitioners are said to have broken pieces deliberately in order to have them repaired this way. A repaired piece began to be considered more beautiful, and more valuable, than an undamaged one.

The Kintsugi Process

Traditional kintsugi is a process that cannot be hurried. It looks as though gold adhesive has been used, but the raw material is urushi — the sap of the lacquer tree.

The milky sap taken from the tree is mixed with wheat flour and water to make mugi-urushi, which becomes a powerful adhesive. Gold or silver powder is then dusted on at the end to finish the seam. The steps are as follows.

Step 1: Cleaning

The broken edges are cleaned carefully. Oil, dirt and any residue of old adhesive must be removed completely. If this step is inadequate, the lacquer will not bond properly.

Step 2: Applying honurushi

Lacquer — natural sap harvested from Japanese lacquer trees — is applied to the broken edges. Honurushi is unusual in that it does not dry by evaporation; it hardens by reacting with moisture in the air, through oxidative polymerisation.

Step 3: Curing

Hardening lacquer requires the right temperature (20–25°C) and humidity (60–80%). The piece goes into a humidity-controlled box called a muro and cures slowly over 24 to 48 hours. Drying it rapidly damages the lacquer.

Step 4: Joining

The edges are brought together, held firmly in place, and cured again. Depending on how the piece broke, several fragments may need joining in sequence.

Step 5: Levelling

Unevenness along the join is filled with repeated applications of lacquer and levelled flat. Because each application needs its own curing period, this is the most time-consuming stage.

Step 6: Gold finishing

Judging the moment before the final lacquer has fully set, gold powder is dusted over it. This judgement of timing is the hardest part and takes real experience. If the lacquer is too dry the powder will not adhere; if it is too wet the powder spreads too far. Excess powder is brushed away, and after a final curing the kintsugi is complete.

Repairing a single piece takes weeks to months across the whole process. Kintsugi finished in a hurry is inferior to unhurried, genuine work in both durability and beauty.

Three Types of Kintsugi

Depending on the material used for the finish, kintsugi comes in several forms.

Kintsugi: the orthodox gold finish

The most common form, using gold powder. The warm shine of gold sets off the history of a break like jewellery. It gleams in bright light and glows quietly in natural light. The surface changes with the angle you view it from and with the light.

Gintsugi: cooler colour and the pleasure of wabi

Repair using silver powder. The lustre is cooler and more restrained than gold. Silver tends to oxidise and darken over time, and many collectors enjoy that change as wabi. If you want to treat the repair as something that grows with use, gintsugi is the one to choose.

Sabitsuke: a wabi finish with no metal powder

A technique that uses lacquer alone, with no gold or silver powder. The seam finishes dark brown to black, an extremely restrained repair with a minimal presence. It sits closest to the wabi-sabi aesthetic and is especially valued in the world of tea — the sensibility that what is truly beautiful does not assert itself.

The Japanese Philosophy Kintsugi Embodies

Kintsugi draws attention around the world as a cultural presence beyond a repair technique because it carries deep philosophical meaning.

Wabi-sabi: accepting imperfection

Wabi-sabi is the idea of cherishing flaws and imperfections not as things to eliminate but as essential individuality. Ordinary repair aims to hide the damage and return an object to its original state; kintsugi does the opposite. It stands on an inverted idea: make the damage prominent in gold, and raise the piece above what it was.

The shock of the break, the scattered fragments. For a piece these are not death but a rite of passage into a new stage. The gold seam holding it together is proof that it came through the crisis of collapse and grew stronger. Rather than in perfect symmetry, Japanese eyes find real strength and depth in a piece that has been through damage and wears it proudly rather than hiding it.

For more on the appeal of wabi-sabi in Japanese ceramics, please also see the guides below.

• Reading Wabi-Sabi in a Single Bowl
• Wabi-Sabi in Ceramics: What It Actually Means

Mono no aware: the beauty of time and impermanence

Mono no aware is the feeling of grieving the impermanence of all things while attaching yourself deeply to the beauty of the moment. Dropping a piece and breaking it is a sad event for anyone, but kintsugi converts that sadness into a story. Every time the owner looks at the repaired piece, they remember the day it broke, and the quiet months spent layering lacquer and dusting gold.

A piece that has been through kintsugi becomes a container of memory that has enclosed time itself. Things change as time passes, and sometimes they break. Accepting that fragility and cherishing what is here now — this acceptance of impermanence is the richness kintsugi teaches.

Mushin: release from attachment

The kintsugi process is a conversation with a nature beyond human control. Unlike chemical adhesives, natural lacquer sets not by drying — by evaporation — but by reacting with humidity. If humidity and temperature are not right, lacquer will not set at all; rush it and only the surface shrinks.

A craftsperson cannot make lacquer behave to suit their schedule. They observe its condition, prepare the best environment they can, and then have no choice but to leave it to the lacquer itself and wait. That state — letting go of excessive attachment to the outcome and immersing yourself in a single step — is called mushin. Coming to terms with a nature that will not go your way, and staying humbly alongside it, is the essence of a Japanese culture that has always valued living with nature.

Kintsugi Today

Kintsugi has become widely recognised outside Japan. It is increasingly cited in psychology, design and personal development as a beauty of damage and a philosophy of recovery, and the concept now carries symbolic meaning well beyond ceramic repair.

In ceramics, a growing number of artists take kintsugi deliberately into their work as art. They break a piece they have made and bring it back through kintsugi. The process of repair has itself become the art.

Since the 2010s the word "kintsugi" has come into wide use in English. Psychologists cite it as a metaphor for post-traumatic growth, designers adopt it as a concept for products that show damage and repair deliberately, and in personal development it is discussed as a symbol of accepting an imperfect self and taking pride in scars.

The MoMA Design Store in New York sells kintsugi kits, and galleries in London and Paris hold exhibitions of kintsugi work. Few Japanese craft concepts in recent memory have spread globally in so short a time.

You do not have to be perfect. Breaking is not the end. Damage is not something to hide but something to be proud of. For people who feel uneasy with a consumption-driven society, pressured by perfection, or tired of disposable culture, the philosophy of kintsugi resonates deeply. A philosophy of repairing pottery has overlapped with a philosophy of how to live.

Kintsugi workshops are now held across Japan, in Kyoto, Tokyo and elsewhere. They range from serious sessions using honurushi to beginner-friendly ones using food-safe finishes. Bringing a piece you care about and repairing it yourself is one of the best ways to deepen your relationship with it. With a kit, even a beginner can do kintsugi on their own piece. Please try this world for yourself.

Urushi: The Story of the Material Behind Kintsugi

Above all, no account of kintsugi is complete without understanding urushi.

Urushi is a natural adhesive and coating material harvested from the sap of the lacquer tree (Toxicodendron vernicifluum). Its use in Japan goes back to the Jomon period and is thought to have a history of roughly nine thousand years.

The defining feature of urushi is how it hardens. Rather than drying by evaporation, it reacts with moisture in the air and hardens through the chemical change of oxidative polymerisation. It therefore will not set in a dry environment — which is exactly why craftspeople who work with it use a humidity-controlled box called a muro.

Once hardened, urushi has extraordinary strength and durability. It resists water, heat, acid and alkali, and a correctly executed lacquer join is said to last for centuries. The lacquer works preserved in the Shosoin in Nara, founded in 752, remain in condition after more than 1,200 years.

The lacquer used for kintsugi is honurushi, the highest quality natural lacquer. The synthetic lacquers in inexpensive kintsugi kits — cashew lacquer and synthetic adhesives — are convenient, but they do not match honurushi in durability, safety or suitability for tableware. If you want genuine kintsugi, it matters to confirm that honurushi has been used.

Lacquerware is a different subject from kintsugi, but it has an appeal of its own. Please see the guide below.

• Urushi Lacquerware: How Japanese Lacquer Is Made

How to Recognise Genuine Kintsugi

When buying a kintsugi piece, it matters to know how to distinguish genuine honurushi kintsugi from a quick repair with synthetic adhesive. Here is what to look for.

Signs of genuine honurushi kintsugi

• The seam has depth in its shine　Not the flat gloss of metal foil.
• The join is filled evenly　Run a finger along it and there is no ridge or dip.
• It does not peel or lift over time　Correctly cured lacquer lasts for centuries.
• It can be used for food　Honurushi is harmless once hardened.

What to watch out for

• Work described as "kintsugi-style"　It may well use synthetic adhesive.
• Seams that are unnaturally even or straight　A real break and a real repair follow organic curves.
• An extremely low price　Genuine kintsugi reflects the hours a craftsperson puts in, and is priced accordingly.

What the Philosophy of Kintsugi Teaches

Kintsugi is a technique for repairing ceramics and, at the same time, an embodiment of a philosophical attitude toward life.

Repairing a broken piece rather than discarding it. Behind that act is an ethic of treating objects as worth keeping. But there is more to it. By emphasising the break in gold, repair stops being an act of hiding and becomes an act of acknowledging and honouring. The paradox — that carrying damage can make something more beautiful — overlaps with the core of wabi-sabi. A perfect state is not the most beautiful; the accumulation of time and experience gives a piece a story of its own, and it is the piece with that story that holds a deeper beauty.

Kintsugi philosophy has been embraced globally because the idea touches a universal human experience across cultures. You do not have to be perfect. Breaking is not the end. Damage is not weakness but proof of history. That message reaches people everywhere.

When you pick up a piece that has been through kintsugi, the gold running across it is not simply decoration. It is a record of time and event: here it once broke, and here it was repaired. You can feel that particular history every time you use it. That is why a kintsugi piece becomes something special to the person who owns it.

Related Guides

More on the culture and history of Japanese ceramics

• A Short History of Japanese Ceramics, Jomon to Now
• Reading Wabi-Sabi in a Single Bowl
• Wabi-Sabi in Ceramics: What It Actually Means
• Pottery That 'Grows': How Ceramics Change With Use
• Zen and Japanese Ceramics: Where the Aesthetic Began
• Ichigo Ichie: Why No Two Handmade Pieces Repeat
• Keshiki: How to Read the 'Landscape' on a Pot

More on Japan's pottery regions

• Japanese Pottery by Region: A Buyer's Map

How to choose Japanese ceramics

• Why Japanese Pottery Is Worth Buying (and Keeping)
• How to Care for Japanese Ceramics: A Practical Guide

How to buy Japanese ceramics

• About Us｜Japanese pottery & culture
• Buying Japanese Pottery Online: What to Check First
• New Arrivals

Pieces available at Nokaze

• Kintsugi Pottery | Japanese Ceramics Repaired with Gold