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Lot Essay
The vases of shibuichi richly engraved, sculpted and inlaid in gold, silver, and colored metal alloys with hanging wisteria using a variety of metalworking techniques signed on the bases Hojo, an art name for Unno Kiyoshi (1884 - 1956).
Kiyoshi was the fourth son of Unno Shomin (1844 - 1915) of the Mito school of metalwork who became a lecturer in the Metal Sculpture Department of the Tokyo University of Fine Art, and was later honored as an Imperial Household Artist (Teishitsu Gigei-In). Although thus descended from a well-established line of traditional metal-workers, the young Kiyoshi chose to enter Waseda University to study Law. He did well at his studies, enjoying the several aspects of Westernization like tennis and baseball, and was expected to pursue a successful career. But something made him change his mind about his future and he left Waseda in the final year of his course to return to the family tradition and enter the School of Fine Art in 1904 when he was twenty-two.
He became skilled in the traditional metalwork techniques studying under both his father and Kano Natsuo, but rather than continue the Meiji period repertoire of decorative export works he developed his own design style inspired by the collections of the Shosoin and subjects from foreign cultures. His works are thus of a kind of hybrid nature combining the tried methods of his family with the inspirations of the Meiji Westernization which had originally moved him to study law. His first milestone success was to win second prize at the Great Taisho Exposition of 1914 with his embossed metal plaque of “The Buddha Sakyamuni Expounding the Law” when he was thirty three. This was to be followed by many prizes. A fine work in the collection of Tokyo National Museum is a cylindrical box with on the top a gilt pierced and sculpted design of parrots after the decoration on a musical instrument in the Shosoin Collection, and around the edge a pierced frieze of shakudo with sea creatures and grapes following the design on a Chinese mirror also in the Shosoin Collection. This won him a Special Selection Prize in the 9th Teiten exposition of 1928.
Kiyoshi became the most widely honored of his generation of metal artists, and in 1955 was invested as the first Living National Treasure (Intangible Cultural Asset) in the field of metal sculpture.
He visited France from two years between 1932 and 1934 where he studied at the Louvre and for a period at the British Museum in London. The experience in the Western museums were to widen his already wide vision of the world, and some of his works were directly inspired by objects he had seen in Paris and London, like the cupronickel figures of an ancient Egyptian cat (1935) and a version of the sacred ox of Menmphis (1954 at the age 70) (Ningen Kokuho Series 28 Nos.12 and 13).
Kiyoshi had been befriended by a wealthy banker named Mineshima Shig'emon in his youth, and Mineshima was to financially support the Unno family while Kiyoshi was away in France. Mineshima personally bought virtually all the works made by Kiyoshi, and further gifted pieces to Tokyo National Museum and the University of Fine Art.
Kiyoshi's elder brother Minjo had died in 1910 and his father died five years later in 1915. Kiyoshi must have felt a heavy burden of duty to continue with his father's work, and it has been suggested that his family's circumstances might have compelled him to abandon his Law studies and return to support his father and brother.
The vases took two years to make and painstaking effort by Kiyoshi has produced in them a remarkable tour-de-force of the very best established metalworking traditions. At the same time the vases show Kiyoshi's own technical excellence and creative vision in the free approach to design, perhaps best seen in the great swathe of wisteria in katakiri-bori in which the sculpted flowers glow like brush painting.
A document dated 1919 accompanying the vases tells how the greatest craftsmen of the day were involved in the work, naming Inoue Kiyomi as making the base bodies of the vases, a Hoshino who carved the wood stands, and Umeya Shimamoto who made the textile covers. The weights and compositions of the alloys used are given, and all the metalworking methods including high relief level inlay of gold and silver, high relief sculpture of inlaid metals, katakiri-bori (oblique chiselwork) inlay, and others. They were made under the supervision of the Takamura Koun (1852 - 1934), an Imperial Household Artist (Teishitsu Gigei-In) and professor of Sculpture in the university, and the document bears the signature Takamura Koun with the seal of Takamura Koun, and the signature Unno Hojo together with the seal Unno Kiyoshi saku.
The art name Hojo is composed of the character 'Ho' from 'Hoshu', Kiyoshi's father's art name, and 'Jo' from 'Minjo', his elder brother's name, and is possibly a unique example of the use of that name. Such a touching tribute to his father and brother on these vases might be thought of as showing respect of the family metalworking tradition, and to have given Kiyoshi a final release from the confines of standard Meiji metalwork thus allowing his genius free reign to continue making the small number of exquisite works in his own inimitable style that we know today.
Victor Harris, Keeper Emeritus of Japanese Antiquities, The British Museum
Kiyoshi was the fourth son of Unno Shomin (1844 - 1915) of the Mito school of metalwork who became a lecturer in the Metal Sculpture Department of the Tokyo University of Fine Art, and was later honored as an Imperial Household Artist (Teishitsu Gigei-In). Although thus descended from a well-established line of traditional metal-workers, the young Kiyoshi chose to enter Waseda University to study Law. He did well at his studies, enjoying the several aspects of Westernization like tennis and baseball, and was expected to pursue a successful career. But something made him change his mind about his future and he left Waseda in the final year of his course to return to the family tradition and enter the School of Fine Art in 1904 when he was twenty-two.
He became skilled in the traditional metalwork techniques studying under both his father and Kano Natsuo, but rather than continue the Meiji period repertoire of decorative export works he developed his own design style inspired by the collections of the Shosoin and subjects from foreign cultures. His works are thus of a kind of hybrid nature combining the tried methods of his family with the inspirations of the Meiji Westernization which had originally moved him to study law. His first milestone success was to win second prize at the Great Taisho Exposition of 1914 with his embossed metal plaque of “The Buddha Sakyamuni Expounding the Law” when he was thirty three. This was to be followed by many prizes. A fine work in the collection of Tokyo National Museum is a cylindrical box with on the top a gilt pierced and sculpted design of parrots after the decoration on a musical instrument in the Shosoin Collection, and around the edge a pierced frieze of shakudo with sea creatures and grapes following the design on a Chinese mirror also in the Shosoin Collection. This won him a Special Selection Prize in the 9th Teiten exposition of 1928.
Kiyoshi became the most widely honored of his generation of metal artists, and in 1955 was invested as the first Living National Treasure (Intangible Cultural Asset) in the field of metal sculpture.
He visited France from two years between 1932 and 1934 where he studied at the Louvre and for a period at the British Museum in London. The experience in the Western museums were to widen his already wide vision of the world, and some of his works were directly inspired by objects he had seen in Paris and London, like the cupronickel figures of an ancient Egyptian cat (1935) and a version of the sacred ox of Menmphis (1954 at the age 70) (Ningen Kokuho Series 28 Nos.12 and 13).
Kiyoshi had been befriended by a wealthy banker named Mineshima Shig'emon in his youth, and Mineshima was to financially support the Unno family while Kiyoshi was away in France. Mineshima personally bought virtually all the works made by Kiyoshi, and further gifted pieces to Tokyo National Museum and the University of Fine Art.
Kiyoshi's elder brother Minjo had died in 1910 and his father died five years later in 1915. Kiyoshi must have felt a heavy burden of duty to continue with his father's work, and it has been suggested that his family's circumstances might have compelled him to abandon his Law studies and return to support his father and brother.
The vases took two years to make and painstaking effort by Kiyoshi has produced in them a remarkable tour-de-force of the very best established metalworking traditions. At the same time the vases show Kiyoshi's own technical excellence and creative vision in the free approach to design, perhaps best seen in the great swathe of wisteria in katakiri-bori in which the sculpted flowers glow like brush painting.
A document dated 1919 accompanying the vases tells how the greatest craftsmen of the day were involved in the work, naming Inoue Kiyomi as making the base bodies of the vases, a Hoshino who carved the wood stands, and Umeya Shimamoto who made the textile covers. The weights and compositions of the alloys used are given, and all the metalworking methods including high relief level inlay of gold and silver, high relief sculpture of inlaid metals, katakiri-bori (oblique chiselwork) inlay, and others. They were made under the supervision of the Takamura Koun (1852 - 1934), an Imperial Household Artist (Teishitsu Gigei-In) and professor of Sculpture in the university, and the document bears the signature Takamura Koun with the seal of Takamura Koun, and the signature Unno Hojo together with the seal Unno Kiyoshi saku.
The art name Hojo is composed of the character 'Ho' from 'Hoshu', Kiyoshi's father's art name, and 'Jo' from 'Minjo', his elder brother's name, and is possibly a unique example of the use of that name. Such a touching tribute to his father and brother on these vases might be thought of as showing respect of the family metalworking tradition, and to have given Kiyoshi a final release from the confines of standard Meiji metalwork thus allowing his genius free reign to continue making the small number of exquisite works in his own inimitable style that we know today.
Victor Harris, Keeper Emeritus of Japanese Antiquities, The British Museum