Urushi and Maki-e with Italian Flair

Bottegando Italia uses traditional Asian lacquer techniques and materials to create iconoclastic fountain pens.

- BY NICKY PESSAROFF

What you see above right: a fountain pen body of wood. Lacquer applications of kijiro urushi and the suri technique, lending the pen a warm, amber tone. Multiple polishing techniques involving camellia oil and migakiko mineral powder. Flowers representing the four seasons using hira, taka, and bokashi maki-e. All are traditional urushi and maki-e techniques covering some of the most classical of maki-e subjects: flowers and the seasons. But from there, Sergio Montagna of Bottegando Italia diverges from all the rules.

For one, the body of the aforementioned fountain pen, the Bottegando Italia Flowers of the Four Seasons, is Finnish birchwood.

For another, the flowers that symbolize the four seasons are European: tulips represent spring, sunflowers denote the summer months, autumn is captured in the blooms of chrysanthemums, and hellebore represents winter. As a signature, rather than Japanese characters, are the letters “S” and “M” (Montagna being not only the owner of Bottegando Italia but also its sole artist) along with a “B” for his atelier name. While Montagna works in traditional urushi and maki-e methods, his compositions are iconoclastic.

He is not the first Western artist to experiment in urushi and maki-e. In the United States, the accessories company Franklin-Christoph and the artisan Jonathon Brooks among others have crafted urushi and/or maki-e pens, and the Swiss brand Manu Propria has crafted urushi pens for decades. But Montagna is the first Italian maker to paint urushi and maki-e fountain pens, at least for an international audience.

“No Italian company has an Italian artist who creates maki-e works using the original, traditional materials,” Montagna says.