Why does the surface look like dried mud? Two reviewed pieces wear a pale crust that has crazed into a web of plates over a contrasting body — the look of lichen on rock, or a lakebed after the water leaves. On 1872 the crust flakes lichen-like over a dark vessel; on 1983 it sits as flat mud-crack plates over a rust-orange chawan. Same event, two grounds.
Whether the crust is slip, glaze, or something else that shrank harder than its body is never asserted — and per the catalog’s condition discipline, the crazing is a surface look, never called flaking, failing, or a defect. The term waited as a one-member candidate from the batch-9 review until 1983 gave it a second member in the 2026-07-12 batch-11 ruling.
See it on real pieces
1872, 1983 — or browse the lichen-crust listing.
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