Silversmith

After our tour of the incense factory yesterday morning, our second visit of the day was to a third-generation silversmith named Takehito Yoshinaga. His workshop and showroom were on a small street a few blocks away from the incense factory. Yoshinaga san spoke no English, so the tour was entirely in Japanese. However, since there were plenty of props, he found ways to get his meaning across.

Here he is in his main workshop. Right in front of his knees is an anvil (held in place by wooden wedges) on which a given piece is placed and hammered into shape. Around him on the floor are various hammers (on the left) and various silver kettles in various stages in the manufacturing process:

The anvils themselves come in a variety of shapes and sizes, depending on what kind of piece is being made:

Similarly for the hammers, which differed considerably in the size of their tips:

Yoshinaga san demonstrated on a piece of scrap silver, showing how two different hammer sizes produce different patterns on the finished product:

We also examples of various accessories that are added to the basic metal forms, including this silver handle in the shape of a praying mantis:

Out in the showroom were some of the finished products. Because of the high-quality materials and the time-consuming nature of the way they are made, the prices are correspondingly steep. Tea kettles are one specialty. Here is a beautiful silver tea-kettle for sale for about $19,000:

However, the most valuable pieces in the showroom were a series of hollow spherical incense holders (a link to our morning tour!). We saw one of these in the workshop, partway through the process of being made:

One of the incense-holders in the gallery was made of solid silver and gold and took a total of over three years to make. Its list price was over $400,000 ... .