Sendai Tsuisyu is a lacquerware tradition produced in Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, and has been designated as a Traditional Craft by the Governor of Miyagi Prefecture. 

Tsuisyu is one of the techniques within a style of lacquerware known as chōshitsu, which originated in China. In Japan, it refers to lacquerware in which layers of red lacquer are built up on a wooden base and then carved to reveal decorative patterns. Sendai Tsuisyu employs a distinctive technique in which black lacquer is applied over the layered vermilion to create an aged, antique tone. The intricate carving and the beauty of its Oriental color palette are among its greatest appeals.

Products range widely, including inkstone boxes, document cases, tea saucers, and confectionery bowls. In 2011, the craft received the Good Design Award, and it continues to be highly regarded for its design sensibility, which harmonizes with contemporary life. Practical and durable, it has been cherished as one of Sendai's proudest local crafts for approximately 100 years.

Sendai Tsuisyu is a practical lacquerware crafted entirely by hand — from wood carving through to polishing and lacquering — with great care and time invested in every piece.
Through the distinctive production method known as "Tōka Tsuisyu," in which a wooden base is covered with an elaborately molded relief, it became possible to mass-produce lacquerware that is both sturdy and easy to handle. The craft also offers practical advantages, including excellent heat and water resistance.

Today, the tradition of carving directly into the wooden base and carrying out all processes — from polishing to lacquering — entirely by hand continues to be upheld. The layered patterns that emerge through careful polishing give each individual piece a deeply expressive appearance unlike any other.

The history of Tsuisyu in Sendai began in the late Meiji period, long after the lacquerware traditions of the feudal domain era had fallen into decline, when Kawasaki Einojō, a craftsman of Murakami Tsuisyu from Niigata Prefecture, was invited to Sendai. Kawasaki established his own mass-production techniques, making lacquerware — once an expensive luxury — accessible to ordinary people. His methods were later inherited by Minami Tadashi, also a maki-e artist, who founded the Sendai Tsuisyu Seisakusho in the 1940s and 1950s, firmly establishing the foundation of what exists today. The workshop remains the only one of its kind in Sendai, where the third-generation successor — a grandchild of the founder — continues to preserve the traditional craft.