Every fracture tells a story.
We finish it in gold.
Kintsugi Atelier Hana restores broken ceramics with traditional urushi lacquer and hand-applied gold — not to hide the break, but to honor it. Collectors and families across the world mail us their most treasured pieces; we return them as heirlooms, more beautiful than before.
Kintsugi is not repair. It is reverence.
For over four hundred years, Kyoto artisans have mended broken pottery with urushi — a lacquer drawn from the sap of the lacquer tree — and dusted the seams with gold. The break is not disguised. It is illuminated, so that the piece's history becomes part of its beauty.
We believe the objects you love most — a grandmother's teacup, a wedding gift, a vase carried across oceans — deserve this same care. Our studio exists to give broken things a second, more luminous life.
Read Our Story
Photo by Stephen Pontes on Unsplash
From your hands to ours, and back again
A journey of four careful stages — designed to remove every fear from mailing a treasured piece across the world.
1. Ship
Pack your piece following our guide and send it insured to our Kyoto studio.
2. Assess
We photograph and examine each fragment, then send you a personalized estimate.
3. Repair
Layer by layer, our craftsmen mend the break with urushi lacquer and gold.
4. Return
Your restored heirloom returns insured, with a certificate of its restoration.
Recent restorations
Photo by Babak Eshaghian on Unsplash
An Heirloom Bowl
Six fragments, one afternoon of breakage, three generations of memory — reunited in gold.
Photo by Matt Perkins on Unsplash
A Wedding Gift
Cracked in transit between continents, mended before its owners' first anniversary.
Sending a treasured piece across the world, made simple
Fully Insured Shipping
Every leg of the journey — to us and back — is insured for full appraised value.
Photo Documentation
We photograph your piece at intake, mid-repair, and completion.
Correspondence Worldwide
We write to clients by email in English, Japanese, French, and German, wherever they are in the world.
Restoration Guarantee
If a repaired seam ever fails under normal use, we mend it again at no charge.
"We do not restore ceramics to make them look unbroken. We restore them so the break becomes the most beautiful part of the piece."— Hiroshi Tanaka, Master Craftsman & Founder