.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The life of the cloisonné artist Namikawa Yasuyuki (1845-1927) covered the years of the great export drive for Japanese arts and crafts at the beginning of the Meiji period (1868-1912), through the flowering of his own genius and skill in the last years of the 19th century, and the years of prosperity of his studio in his advanced age. Much of his early work was, in common with most Japanese cloisonné at the time, very much influenced by the enamel colours and designs of older Chinese work. His designs were frequently of well-tried motifs in panels, and with bands of repeated patterns at the neck and foot. But this was to change as his own skill and artistic sense developed with the growing popularity of Japanese cloisonné overseas. Many of his early designs were drawn by the designer Nakahara Tessen, who recorded them in his Kyo Shippo Monyo Shu (Kyoto Cloisonné Pattern Collection). At that time Yasuyuki depicted birds as indicated by Tessen, such as the pygmy woodpecker, the mejiro tit, the common sparrow, and the Java sparrow, but his later work contains beautifully depicted birds of his own vision. Around 1878 or 1879 Yasuyuki met the German chemist Gottfried Wagener (1831-1892) who had introduced a new range of vividly coloured glazes for the porcelain industry in Arita. Yasuyuki improved and refined his glazes in colour and texture to make both transparent and opaque glazes of faultless clarity as used for this present vase.
Namikawa won prizes at the Philadelphia World Fair of 1876, then at the Paris World Fair of 1878, and later at the 1889 Paris Fair. He was also honoured 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 a Teishitsu Gigeiin, or ‘Imperial Artist’, the only two cloisonné makers to be so honoured.
The present vase is numbered among a group of fine bird and flower pictures depicted in bright coloured enamels on a deep black, or in this case a midnight blue, ground. Here silver wires are used to make intricate cloisonné, and noticeably on the trunk and branches of the cherry tree the wires vary in width to give the impression of brush painting thus adding depth to the whole composition. Reflecting the ancient Japanese aesthetic Yasuyuki has used the black alloy shakudo (copper with a few percent gold patinated black) to form bands at the rim, neck, the foot rim, and above it where the curve widens gracefully into the foot. The bands are an effective component of the composition, and might well have been used to consolidate the glaze at places where good adhesion has to be maintained, thus perhaps replacing the service provided by bands of lappets on earlier pieces. Even with standard themes often using the same trees and flowers each of his works, like this piece, is unique and possesses its own individual charm.
Examples of such mature bird and flower work using silver wires in simulation of brush work by the artist are to be seen in the Khalili Collection, Japanese Imperial Craftsmen: Meiji Art from the Khalili Collection, (British Museum Press, 1994) number 76, and in a larger vase acquired by the Japanese Imperial Household in 1899 (Nippon no Bijutsu no. 41 Cloisonné Shibundo, 1969).
Namikawa won prizes at the Philadelphia World Fair of 1876, then at the Paris World Fair of 1878, and later at the 1889 Paris Fair. He was also honoured 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 a Teishitsu Gigeiin, or ‘Imperial Artist’, the only two cloisonné makers to be so honoured.
The present vase is numbered among a group of fine bird and flower pictures depicted in bright coloured enamels on a deep black, or in this case a midnight blue, ground. Here silver wires are used to make intricate cloisonné, and noticeably on the trunk and branches of the cherry tree the wires vary in width to give the impression of brush painting thus adding depth to the whole composition. Reflecting the ancient Japanese aesthetic Yasuyuki has used the black alloy shakudo (copper with a few percent gold patinated black) to form bands at the rim, neck, the foot rim, and above it where the curve widens gracefully into the foot. The bands are an effective component of the composition, and might well have been used to consolidate the glaze at places where good adhesion has to be maintained, thus perhaps replacing the service provided by bands of lappets on earlier pieces. Even with standard themes often using the same trees and flowers each of his works, like this piece, is unique and possesses its own individual charm.
Examples of such mature bird and flower work using silver wires in simulation of brush work by the artist are to be seen in the Khalili Collection, Japanese Imperial Craftsmen: Meiji Art from the Khalili Collection, (British Museum Press, 1994) number 76, and in a larger vase acquired by the Japanese Imperial Household in 1899 (Nippon no Bijutsu no. 41 Cloisonné Shibundo, 1969).