SEALED MUSASHIYA AND SIGNED MASAZANE, MEIJI PERIOD (LATE 19TH CENTURY)

The Musashiya company, operated by Ozeki Yahei and his son Sadajiro, were perhaps the most successful of the concerns selling high-quality decorative art during the Meiji era. Originally a dealer in pipes, Ozeki Yahei set up the Yokohama branch at 66 Main Street, probably under the management of his son Ozeki Sadajiro, soon after the port was opened in 1859. In 1877, both father and son exhibited commissioned pieces under their separate names in the first Naikoku Kangyo Hakurankai [National Industrial Exposition]. By 1880, the company is recorded as employing twenty-four people and dealing in enamels, bronzes, ivory, crystal, carvings, pins, fans, hardstones, tortoiseshell, lacquer, and a variety of ceramics.1

1. Joe Earle, Splendors of Meiji: Treasures of Imperial Japan, Masterpieces from the Khalili Collection (Florida, 1999), p.94