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Lot Essay
The earliest Japanese cloisonné vessels, made in the mid-19th century, were decorated with rough, dark enameling in a crude imitation of Chinese prototypes, but already by the late 1880s Japanese enamel was one of the wonders of the international marketplace. Around 1878 or 1879, Namikawa Yasuyuki (1845-1927) met the German chemist Gottfried Wagener (1831-1892) with whose knowledge of ceramic pigmentation he was able to develop and refine his glazes in color and texture to make both transparent and opaque glazes of faultless clarity. He took great care over his compositions and varied the standard motifs so that each piece was unique and with its own charm and character. Many of his early designs were drawn by the designer Nakahara Tessen, who recorded them in his Kyo Shippo mon'yo shu (Kyoto cloisonné pattern collection).
Namikawa won prizes at the Philadelphia World Fair of 1876, and then at the Paris World Fair of 1878, and later at the 1889 Paris Fair. He was also honored at the series of National Industrial Expositions which was instituted in 1877. He won altogether 31 prizes at expositions both at home and abroad. In 1896, together with the unrelated Namikawa Sosuke, Yasuyuki was appointed as Teishitsu Gigeiin, Artist to the Imperial Household, the only two cloisonné makers to be so named.
For other jar with flat cover without finial, see George Kuwayama, Shippo: The Art of Enameling in Japan (Far Eastern Art Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1987), no. 57; and Murata Masayuki, Bakumatsu Meiji no kogei (Japanese crafts of the late Edo and Meiji periods) (Kyoto: Tankosha), no. 10.
Namikawa won prizes at the Philadelphia World Fair of 1876, and then at the Paris World Fair of 1878, and later at the 1889 Paris Fair. He was also honored at the series of National Industrial Expositions which was instituted in 1877. He won altogether 31 prizes at expositions both at home and abroad. In 1896, together with the unrelated Namikawa Sosuke, Yasuyuki was appointed as Teishitsu Gigeiin, Artist to the Imperial Household, the only two cloisonné makers to be so named.
For other jar with flat cover without finial, see George Kuwayama, Shippo: The Art of Enameling in Japan (Far Eastern Art Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1987), no. 57; and Murata Masayuki, Bakumatsu Meiji no kogei (Japanese crafts of the late Edo and Meiji periods) (Kyoto: Tankosha), no. 10.