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An Important Early Pair of Bronze Usubata ('Thin-Rimmed') Vases By Tamagawa Mitsukiyo, Meiji era (1868-1912), circa 1880 image 1
An Important Early Pair of Bronze Usubata ('Thin-Rimmed') Vases By Tamagawa Mitsukiyo, Meiji era (1868-1912), circa 1880 image 2
An Important Early Pair of Bronze Usubata ('Thin-Rimmed') Vases By Tamagawa Mitsukiyo, Meiji era (1868-1912), circa 1880 image 3
An Important Early Pair of Bronze Usubata ('Thin-Rimmed') Vases By Tamagawa Mitsukiyo, Meiji era (1868-1912), circa 1880 image 4
An Important Early Pair of Bronze Usubata ('Thin-Rimmed') Vases By Tamagawa Mitsukiyo, Meiji era (1868-1912), circa 1880 image 5
An Important Early Pair of Bronze Usubata ('Thin-Rimmed') Vases By Tamagawa Mitsukiyo, Meiji era (1868-1912), circa 1880 image 6
Lot 219

An Important Early Pair of Bronze Usubata ('Thin-Rimmed') Vases
By Tamagawa Mitsukiyo, Meiji era (1868-1912), circa 1880

Fine Japanese Art
7 November 2019, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

£25,000 - £30,000

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An Important Early Pair of Bronze Usubata ('Thin-Rimmed') Vases

By Tamagawa Mitsukiyo, Meiji era (1868-1912), circa 1880
A pair of usubata ('thin-rimmed') vases, each in three parts comprising a base, a main body and a rim; of cast, patinated and polished bronze with relief decoration and details in copper, silver and gold; the bases with extensive flower, bird and cloud ornament in silver-wire inlay, formed as a larger flanged circular foot with three openwork lotus-throne components supporting a smaller circular socketed stand; the bodies (applied with separately cast stylized openwork floral handles) each with figural designs derived from woodblock-printed books (see below) within a cloud-shaped or scalloped border, above a base decorated with bird-scarers, lotuses, spider's webs and snakes; the broad rims with wave and floral motifs around the edges, their upper surfaces with anthropomorphic foxes enjoying a feast and a cherry-blossom outing; each signed on the base Kashu Tamagawa tsukuru (Made by Tamagawa of Kaga Province) with a distinctive kao (cursive monogram). Each 48cm (18 7/8in) high; the rims 30.2cm (11 7/8in) diameter.

Footnotes

Based on Chinese bronze forms but with exaggeratedly wide rims, usubata were first cast in Japan during in the seventeenth century for formal flower arrangements; then, during the early Meiji era, elaborate multi-part usubata became one of the favoured forms of bronze destined for international exhibitions and the global export market. Most were manufactured in the cities of Takaoka (Etchu Province) and Kanazawa (Kaga Province); the little-known bronze master Tamagawa Mitsukiyo is recorded as having been active in both centres and another single usubata by him is preserved in the Takaoka City Museum of Art; see
https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/187077 and https://www.e-tam.info/gallery.html; also Torita Sogo, 'Takaoka doki no chokin giho (Metal Carving Techniques Used in the Takaoka Bronze Casting)', Takaoka Tanki Daigaku kiyo (Bulletin of Takaoka National College, 20 (March 2005), p.258 (accessible at https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/70325420.pdf).

Metalworkers at this time frequently added to the exotic appeal of their creations by using motifs drawn from popular woodblock-printed illustrated books; in this case the spooky matched scenes on one side of each vase, featuring two Buddhist saints, Mikazuki Shonin and Yuten Osho, haunted respectively by the ghouls Kikujogarei and Kasane no enkon, are taken from vol. 10, pp.34-5 of Hokusai manga (1819), Katsushika Hokusai's encyclopedic series of design sketches, see Hashimoto Osamu (intro.), Katsushika Hokusai Hokusai Manga (The Complete Hokusai-Manga Sketchbooks), Tokyo, Shogakukan, 2005, pp.586-7.

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