Yamada Glass 山田硝子

Who is Yamada Glass?

Yamada Glass names its founder as Yamada Eitaro, who trained under the British glass-cutting instructor Emmanuel Hauptmann, invited from Britain in 1881 as Meiji Japan built its first Western-style glass works and trained technicians around it. Working from that training, Eitaro went on to advance hanagiriko, the flower-cutting method the workshop's own history ties to his hand.

How did the family carry it forward?

The workshop's own site names the line: Yamada Eitaro at its roots, then Yamada Teruo (born 1943), Yamada Masaaki (born 1973) and Yamada Ruon (born 2002) on its profile page. Yamada Teruo, born in 1943, became the second generation; his profile page counts twenty-five and more acceptances in the Japan Traditional Crafts Exhibition, and thirty-five and more in the East Japan Traditional Crafts Exhibition. Yamada Masaaki, born in 1973, started his apprenticeship in 1992 and received the Tokyo Master Craftsman award in 2020. A fourth generation, Yamada Ruon, born in 2002, began an apprenticeship at the workshop in September 2022.

What marks Yamada's cutting?

The workshop's own site names two techniques side by side rather than one house style: Edo Kiriko, the sharp, straight-line cut polished to a hard brilliance, and hanagiriko, a shallower, blurred cut using several diamond wheels to render plants and animals without a full polish. The site describes hanagiriko as different enough from piece to piece that a cutter's own hand becomes identifiable in the work. Among the workshop's named patterns, 縁繋ぎ, read yukaritsunagi on the workshop's own page and Entsunagi on our listing, meaning roughly "connecting bonds," cuts fine chrysanthemum lines across the whole surface with circular polished windows let into it, so the pattern on the far side of the glass shows faintly through each circle.

What do we carry from Yamada?

What we have on hand from Yamada runs to crystal-glass whisky and sake glasses across several named patterns: a flame-pattern sake glass, an akatsuki, dawn, whisky glass, an entsunagi whisky glass and a koko, glittering-light, sake glass, alongside sazanami (漣, ripples), hado (波動) and a pattern named for Mount Fuji, 山下白雨. Browse the Kiriko collection to see Yamada's range alongside our other kiriko houses, since what is on the shelf shifts as pieces sell through.

How do you look after it?

Wash Yamada glass by hand in lukewarm water with a mild detergent, never in the dishwasher, the same routine as any cut-glass piece we carry. Our cut-glass care guide has the full routine, and our Edo Kiriko guide covers the patterns Yamada shares with other Tokyo cutters.