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Lot Essay
This is one of a group of bronzes cast by Suzuki Chokichi (1848-1919) in association with the Kiryu Kosho Kaisha, a semi-official global trading company set up in the wake of the Vienna Exposition of 1873 (known at the time, in antique and naive transliteration, as 'Kiriukoshio Guaishia'; the correct reading the company's name, with Kiryu rather than Kiritsu, has been established from early engravings and photographs).1 With a few exceptions these vases are either signed Kako (Chokichi's art name) or, more rarely, Kiritsu Kiryu Kaisha, in either case under a double mountain mark, and are between about 10 and 12 inches in height.2 The designs are mostly based on one of 1,969 drawings dating from between 1877 and 1890, commissioned by the company from various artists and now preserved in Tokyo University of Arts;3 most of those for the jars date from between the years 1881 and 1883, when Cunliffe Owen bought the South Kensington (Victoria and Albert) Museum's example at the Amsterdam exposition.4 While Chokichi apparently supervised the casting process, the elaborate soft-metal decoration was carried out by other craftsmen who had earlier trained as makers of sword-fittings; the names of two of these specialists, Sugiura Yukinari and his brother Sugiura Yukimune, are known from two bronzes in the Khalili collection. These bronzes are rightly regarded as a triumphant combination of two of the principal metalworking traditions of pre-modern Japan: bronzecasting and chiselling in gold, silver and a variety of copper alloys.
1 See Illustrated Catalogue of the Japanese Art Exhibition (Boston, 1883), reproduced in Hida Toyojiro, Meiji no yushutsu kogei zuan: Kiryu Kosho Kaisha no rekishi [Meiji Period Design Sketches for Export Crafts: The History of the Kiritsu Kosho Kaisha] (Nihon moyo zushu [Collection of Japanese designs] series, Kyoto, Kyoto Shoin, 1998), p. 193, fig. 11
2 For further examples see Oliver Impey and Malcolm Fairley (eds.), Meiji no Takara: Treasures of Imperial Japan (The Nasser D.Khalili Collection of Japanese Art, London, Kibo Foundation, 1995), volume 2, part 1 (Metalwork), cat. no. 5; Joe Earle, Splendors of Meiji: Treasures of Imperial Japan, Masterpieces from the Khalili Collection (St. Petersburg, Florida, Broughton International Publications, 1999), cat. no. 6 (an example with a lid) and Joe Earle, Flower Bronzes of Japan (London, 1995), plates 84, 86, 87 and 88 (this last in the Victoria and Albert Museum); and Christie's London, Japanese Works of Art (16 June 1998), lot 273
3 Hida Toyojiro, Kiritsu Kosho Kaisha kogei shitazushu: Meiji no yushutsu kogei zuan [Kiritsu Kosho Kaisha, the first Japanese manufacturing and trading company: designs for export crafts] (Kyoto, Kyoto Shoin, 1987) and Hida Toyojiro, Meiji no yushutsu kogei zuan: Kiryu Kosho Kaisha no rekishi [Meiji Period Design Sketches for Export Crafts: The History of the Kiritsu Kosho Kaisha] (Nihon moyo zushu [Collection of Japanese designs] series, Kyoto, Kyoto Shoin, 1998)
4 Joe Earle, Flower Bronzes of Japan (London, 1995), pp. 153-4
1 See Illustrated Catalogue of the Japanese Art Exhibition (Boston, 1883), reproduced in Hida Toyojiro, Meiji no yushutsu kogei zuan: Kiryu Kosho Kaisha no rekishi [Meiji Period Design Sketches for Export Crafts: The History of the Kiritsu Kosho Kaisha] (Nihon moyo zushu [Collection of Japanese designs] series, Kyoto, Kyoto Shoin, 1998), p. 193, fig. 11
2 For further examples see Oliver Impey and Malcolm Fairley (eds.), Meiji no Takara: Treasures of Imperial Japan (The Nasser D.Khalili Collection of Japanese Art, London, Kibo Foundation, 1995), volume 2, part 1 (Metalwork), cat. no. 5; Joe Earle, Splendors of Meiji: Treasures of Imperial Japan, Masterpieces from the Khalili Collection (St. Petersburg, Florida, Broughton International Publications, 1999), cat. no. 6 (an example with a lid) and Joe Earle, Flower Bronzes of Japan (London, 1995), plates 84, 86, 87 and 88 (this last in the Victoria and Albert Museum); and Christie's London, Japanese Works of Art (16 June 1998), lot 273
3 Hida Toyojiro, Kiritsu Kosho Kaisha kogei shitazushu: Meiji no yushutsu kogei zuan [Kiritsu Kosho Kaisha, the first Japanese manufacturing and trading company: designs for export crafts] (Kyoto, Kyoto Shoin, 1987) and Hida Toyojiro, Meiji no yushutsu kogei zuan: Kiryu Kosho Kaisha no rekishi [Meiji Period Design Sketches for Export Crafts: The History of the Kiritsu Kosho Kaisha] (Nihon moyo zushu [Collection of Japanese designs] series, Kyoto, Kyoto Shoin, 1998)
4 Joe Earle, Flower Bronzes of Japan (London, 1995), pp. 153-4