SIGNED SUZUKI MASAYOSHI, EARLY MEIJI PERIOD (CIRCA 1873)

Details

A MAGNIFICENT EXHIBITION KORO [INCENSE BURNER]
Signed Suzuki Masayoshi, Early Meiji Period (Circa 1873)
With dark green-brown patination and formed from several different components comprising a cover in the form of monkeys cowering underneath a large rock on which is perched an eagle with its wings outspread, an ovoid body with two lobed panels depicting on one side Chinese figures including the three heroes of the Chinese tale Sangokushi, (in Chinese, Sanguozhi), Kan'u, Chohi and Gentoku (Guanyu, Zhangfei and Xuande), and on the other shishi with rocks and peonies, the panels with a border of fine low-relief ornament, the rest of the surface of the body with scattered floral ornament, the top border of the body and the border of the lid with phoenix and dragon medallions, the body applied with two handles in the form of dragons and resting on a domed base with lappet ornament supported on an openwork fruiting branch of peach, this in turn supported on a circular stand with six lappet-shaped feet resting on the circular base which is worked in the centre between the six legs with rocks and shishi, the lower border of the base with lappet ornament, signed in cast characters in a rectangular cartouche underneath the body Tokyo no ju Suzuki Masayoshi zo [made by Suzuki Masayoshi of Tokyo], the whole resting on a specially manufactured wood plinth decorated with porcelain plaques bearing the crest of the owners (see below)
75in. (190cm.) high without wood plinth; wood plinth 20in. (50cm.) high

Provenance

Formerly the property of the Wahliss family, owners of a famous Viennese porcelain factory, who bought the bronze at the Vienna Exposition of 1873. It was displayed in the palace-like foyer of the family's private residence and office building on Kärntnerstrasse on the plinth shown here.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

Although two separate delegations, one from the shogunal government and the other from the Saga and Satsuma fiefs in Kyushu, had organised Japanese displays at the Paris Exposition of 1867 (the year leading up to the Meiji Restoration), the Vienna World Exhibition of 1873 marked the new Meiji government's first official and concerted participation in a global exposition. More than 500,000 yen (nearly one percent of national resources) were devoted to the Japanese displays and on the advice of a German professor of chemistry it was decided that in view of the country's low level of industrial development they should be devoted to technically refined decorative arts, thus appealing to a European taste for exotic goods already kindled by the earlier French exhibition. Bronzecasters from all over Japan, and especially Tokyo (the new capital) and the provincial centres of Kanazawa and Takaoka responded magnificently to the challenge, adapting the existing traditions of bronze manufacture for temple fittings and flower containers to produce an impressive range of outsize exhibition pieces that combine exaggerated features borrowed from early Chinese work with a wealth of exotic decoration. For another large-scale bronze by this artist see Comune di Milano, Kinko: I Bronzi Estremo-Orientali dalla Raccolta Etnografica del Castello Sforzesco [Kinko: Japanese bronzes from the ethnographic collections of Castello Sforzesco] (Milan, Mazzotta, 1995), cat. no. 145, and for other early-Meiji bronzes see Joe Earle, Splendors of Meiji: Treasures of Imperial Japan, Masterpieces from the Khalili Collection (St. Petersburg, Florida, Broughton International Publications, 1999), cat. nos.1-3 (by Suzuki Chokichi) and 230 (a later huge koro by Hayashi Harusada). For a detailed study of early exhibition bronzes see Yokomizo Hiroko, Meiji shoki no hakurankai o kazatta kinzoku on metalwork shown at international expositions in the early Meiji period', Museum, 492 (March 1992), pp. 28-42 and for a more general account of Japan at the Vienna World Exhibition, see Herbert Fux et al., Japan auf der Weltausstellung in Wien 1873 (Vienna, 1973).

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