Isabella Smith is a freelance writer and former senior editor of Apollo.

Shoji Hamada at work in 2008
Still from Story of Yanxi Palace (2018), with the empress wearing a replica of a fengguan (phoenix crown) now in the Palace Museum, Beijing.
Ryoji Koie photographed outside his studio in Japan in 2017.
Bernard Leach working at the wheel (detail; 1963).
Aizuhongo ware covered container (20th century), Japan. Japan Folk Crafts Museum, Tokyo
Sculpture of a large anthropomorphic crab by the Martin Brothers, 1880, salt-glazed stoneware.
Left: Vase (1884), decorated by Laura A. Fry, Rookwood Pottery. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Right: Vase (c. 1885–89), Hugh C. Robertson, Chelsea Keramic Art Works. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Installation view of ‘A Master’s Hand’ exhibition at Driscoll Babcock Galleries, New York, 2017.
Installation view of ‘Wetwang Slack’, Barbican Centre, London, 2018.
A selection of glazed ceramic buttons (1944–45), Lucie Rie.