SIGNED MOMOSE SHIGESATO, MEIJI PERIOD (19TH CENTURY)

Momose Sozaemon Shigesato (1819-) was a major early Meiji period bronze caster who came from a line of craftsmen founded in the late 18th century and specialised, like the better-known Suzuki Chokichi (1848-1919), in elaborately cast multi-part vases and incense-burners with very high relief decoration. A pair of vases and an okimono by him were exhibited at the Vienna Exposition in 1873 and are illustrated in a photograph of bronzes taken in Japan before their despatch to Austria [see 1 below]. His work also features extensively in the first volume of the Onchi zuroku, a government-sponsored design album produced between 1875 and 1881 [see 2 below]. The first volume is mostly devoted to designs for the Philadelphia exhibition of 1876, and apart from the present lot Momose's best-known surviving work is a similar pair of vases of nearly the same size, in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, cast with scenes from Bakin's novel Hakkenden [see 1 below], which may have been purchased on that occasion (because the descriptions of many of the works shown at Philadelphia are very brief it is difficult to be sure of the origin of some of the Walters purchases) [see 3 below]. Momose's bronzes continued to win prizes at both domestic and foreign expositions until 1881, when the Miyao company showed a pair of flower vases by him decorated with "flower viewing in spring" [see 4 below] which may be the same as the present lot. Most of his decoration, whether genre scenes as here or episodes from Japanese literature and myth, was based on designs by Kishi Seppo (1817-), Kishi Kokei (1839-1922), Kobayashi Jussaku (1858-1886) and Notomi Kaijiro (1844-1918).

1 Yokomizo Hiroko, Meiji shoki no hakurankai wo kazatta kinzoku [On metalwork shown at international expositions in the early Meiji period], Museum, 492 (Mar. 1992), p. 39 and fig. 34

2 Tokyo National Museum, Chosa kenkyu hokokusho Onchi zuroku [Research report on the Onchi zuroku] (Tokyo, 1997), with accompanying CD-ROM, p.72 and CD-ROM 12/15-12/23 etc

3 Tokyo National Research Institution of Cultural Properties, Meijiki bankoku hakurankai bijutsuhin shuppin mokuroku [Catalogues of objects exhibited at international expositions in the Meiji period], (Tokyo, 1997), C.366, 393, etc

4 Tokyo National Research Institution of Cultural Properties, Naikoku kangyo hakurankai bijutsuhin shuppin mokuroku [Catalogues of objects exhibited at the National Industrial Expositions], (Tokyo, 1996), II.1164