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© Jeff Lomas 2011

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Raku’ has its origins in 16th Century Japan when a skilled potter called Chojiro produced bowls for ritual tea ceremonies called ’ima-yaki’, indicating that these were produced by a current method as opposed to long established traditional methods such as ‘San Cai‘.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi, an influential warrior statesman, was so impressed by the pottery that he bestowed a gold seal on the family which included a symbol representing the Chinese character for Raku, encapsulating a contented feeling of ‘ease, pleasure and enjoyment‘. The pottery was renamed ‘juraku-yaki’ and Raku became the family name.

Thus the family name became synonymous with the ceramics they produced and unusually,  the Raku family have continued to produce this pottery in an unbroken line for 15 generations and today is under the guidance of the current head of the family, Kichizaemon.

The western world first became aware of Raku pottery via Bernard Leach’s informative pottery books prior to the outbreak of World War 2 and in the 1960s, Paul Soldner began a revival of Raku pottery techniques in Europe which continue to this day.