The Pontifex Maximus is our first fountain pen model. In Latin, Pontifex means "bridge-builder". Made in Belgium from Japanese ebonite and featuring a "Japanese eyedropper" filling system, this oversized fountain pen is a well balanced writing instrument and offers a generous canvas for urushi and maki-e artwork.
For our first series of six unique urushi artist pens, carte blanche was given to six of the most highly regarded lacquer artists in Japan. Each of these fountain pens is a unique (1/1) work of art and represents the highest level of contemporary urushi art.
Arisumi Mitamura (º1949) descends from a long line of Edo-based Maki-e artists hailing back to the esteemed master Jitoku Akatsuka (1871-1936), who is perceived as one of lacquer art's most important innovators of the 20th century. Since collecting lacquer from his family's own lacquer trees aged seven and urged by his grandfather and father to pursue his own artistic language, Arisumi continues this tradition with a focus on creativity rather than sheer skill, and was awarded Japan's highest title for artistic achievement in the form of the Japan Art Academy Award. Read more about Arisumi and his family in his own words here : https://mitamura-urushi.com/mitamurake
On his fountain pen "Sanmai no Umo" ("Three Down Feathers") Arisumi makes use of copious amounts of densely sprinkled gold powder, stacked in several layers to form a Kinji-ground that was a hallmark technique of the Jitoku-school. These are contrasted against an elegant blue kawarinuri background from which lightly floating feathers emerge that use a mixture of differently shaped and sized gold particles that give them their lively sparkle. At the rear end of the pen, we see that the gold ground is dispersed in several craters or blotches, which is Arisumi's signature technique named tenmoku-nuri in reference to ancient tea bowls with similar speckled patterns. See specification below.
SPECIFICATION
METHOD. Togidashi-maki-e, hira-maki-e, kinji, tenmoku-nuri.
MATERIAL. Gold powder & 100% urushi on ebonite.
FILLING SYSTEM. Japanese Eyedropper (3,5 ml ink capacity).
NIB. #8 18k Gold Bock nib.
DIMENSIONS. Closed length : 152 mm.
Barrel length (incl. nib) : 144 mm.
Barrel diameter : 16 mm.
Cap diameter : 19 mm.
YEAR. 2025
EDITION. 1/1
PRICE. SOLD.