EDO PERIOD (17TH CENTURY)

Few bells remain from the open Christian era in Japan which lasted from the arrival of Francis Xavier in 1549 until the total ban on Christianity following the Shimabara rebellion of 1639. Since that time until the Meiji restoration in 1868 the surviving Japanese Kakure Kirishitan [Hidden Christians] practised their religion in secret, and although Christian symbolism was hidden in design motifs on objects, it is hard, though not impossible, to imagine a bell being made during that time. However apparently meaningless Roman lettering such as that around the shoulder of this the bell is found on other forms of Nanban art, such as netsuke and tsuba, and interestingly a beautifully written inscription on the carved coconut sweet dish (Lot 3).

Two other known bells in Japan are designated as Important Cultural Properties. The great bronze bell in the Eisei Bunko collection was hidden by the Hosokawa family at the time of the persecution of Christianity. This bell, which bears the nine-stars mon of the Hosokawa family, was commissioned by Hosokawa Sansai (1563 -1645) the daimyo of Higo province, whose wife Tama (to be christened as Gracia) was a devout Christian. The other, believed to be made in Portugal in 1577, hung in the Nanbanji temple until the temple’s destruction by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1587, and was subsequently deposited in the Shunko-In Buddhist temple in the Edo period, where it remains today.