Ikkanbari (一閑張)
Light, strong everyday objects made by layering washi over a base of paper, bamboo or wood and coating them with persimmon tannin (kakishibu) or urushi lacquer. In the base layer (shitabari) paper is pasted with great care, since any warping, stretching or trapped air cannot be fixed later; a top layer (uwabari) is aligned so the joins disappear; the coating (nuri) makes the piece waterproof and insect-resistant, sometimes finished with gold or silver leaf or crackle patterns. The craft is credited to Hirai Ikkan (1578–1657), a Chinese-born craftsman who came to Japan in the 1620s and joined Chinese lacquer technique to Japanese paper. His house in Kyoto made tableware and processional hats for the Tokugawa shogunate, and even a paper telescope used by the cartographer Inō Tadataka.
Risk level: Endangered · Not inscribed
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