Usagi to Kame: The Tortoise and the Hare

• A single hand-cast piece showing the hare and the tortoise together, racing to the mountaintop

• Based on one of Japan's most familiar fables, taught in elementary schools since the Meiji era

• Hand-cast and hand-painted in Seto, not a mass-produced import

• Each face painted freehand, so no two figures match

• A fitting gift for anyone starting something that takes patience, a new job, a course of study, a long project

The story arrived in Japan from Aesop's fables during trade contact in the late Muromachi period, but it became genuinely well known through a Meiji-era retelling, the "Zokutsu Isopu Monogatari," which entered school textbooks under the title "Oidan Taiteki," meaning "carelessness is your greatest enemy." Generations of Japanese schoolchildren have learned it the same way: the hare, certain of an easy win, stops to rest, while the tortoise keeps moving and reaches the top first. The lesson taught alongside it is that steady effort beats natural talent paired with overconfidence.

Seto has served as a major Japanese pottery centre since the Heian period and was historically the sole domestic producer of glazed ceramics, which is why "setomono" became the standard Japanese term for pottery. Since the late 1800s, Seto's artisans have applied their expertise to ceramic dolls and figures using traditional methods: plaster mould casting, firing, and freehand hand-painting.

Size: 6.9 × 5.5 × 6.6 cm
Material: Ceramic 
Finish: Matte, hand-painted
Care note: The paint is applied after firing rather than glazed in, so keep this piece dry and handle it gently.

Origin: Seto, Japan