SEALED KOICHI SHIN (TAKASAKI KOICHI), MEIJI PERIOD, LATE 19TH CENTURY

Enamel works were first produced in Japan in the mid-19th century, which were decorated with rough and dark enamelling in crude imitation of Chinese prototypes. However, shortly by the late 1880s, a new level of refinement was achieved.

Takasaki Koichi is known as one of the most prominent metal-artists of the Meiji period and he exhibited a pair of silver vases with applied enamel at the International Exposition held in Paris in 1900.

For a work by the same artist, see Enamel, vol. 3 of Meiji no Takara Treasures of Imperial Japan: The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Japanese Art, Oliver Impey and Malcolm Fairley, gen. eds. (London: The Kibo Foundation, 1995), no. 80.