Yusai Manpai

Yusai Manpai — the cup of a thousand colors

This drinking cup is the work of Makimasa Imai, a Kyoto-based ceramicist from an illustrious three-generation lineage of potters. Son of the legendary master Masayuki Imai — a ceramicist of the highest distinction, awarded Japan's Order of Culture — Makimasa first spent a decade studying sculpture at the Tokyo University of the Arts before returning to Kyoto to embrace ceramics. That double formation runs deeply through his vision: for him, pottery is not only an art — it is above all an object of life, made to be held in the hands, used, and loved.

Yusai Manpai — in Japanese, yusai speaks of color set free, and manpai — yorozusakazuki — means "a cup for every purpose". A vessel that adapts to any occasion, any drink, any table. The name says it all: each piece in this series is unique, painted by hand with complete spontaneity, as though the artist had let his brush run freely across the clay before firing. The motifs — alive, joyful, unpredictable — are born of gesture, not calculation. Makimasa Imai speaks of his work as a search to create pieces in which the narrative imagined within the material unfolds freely in the beholder's mind. This cup is its most direct expression.

The piece is then fired in a wood-burning kiln, which lends the surface a warmth and depth not achievable by other means. The result is a cup that is at once festive and intimate — the kind you place on the table, which immediately changes the atmosphere of a meal.

It welcomes sake, warm or cold, but equally wine, whisky, or simply water. It is a cup made for the joy of drinking together.

Dimensions: W 9.3 cm × D 9.3 cm × H 9.3 cm
Material: Ceramic, wood-fired, hand-painted decoration
Artist: Makimasa Imai
Shipped from Kyoto, Japan