Meiji period (dated 1909), inscribed Shoami Katsuyoshi iso (made by Shoami Katsuyoshi; 1831-1908), signed Yoshizane hosaku (completed by Nakagawa Yoshizane; 1859-1915), and sealed Yoshi

The artist Shoami Katsuyoshi (1832-1908) ranks high among the greatest of the Meiji period metalworkers. As a boy he had started metalwork making sword fittings under his father Nakagawa Katsutsugu, a retainer of the Tsuyama Matsudaira family of Mimasaka province. He later married into the Shoami family of Mimasaka. His elder brother Nakagawa Issho went to Edo and studied there under Goto Ichijo, but Katsuyoshi remained in Mimasaka thus later to forgo the honors which accrued to the group of metalworkers established in Tokyo during the Meiji period. But his work was to become highly prized both in Japan and at international expositions, and it remains so today.
Nakagawa Yoshizane (1859-1915) was the second son of Katsuyoshi and later adopted by Nakagawa Katsumi (1829-1876). Yoshizane became skilled in the traditional metalwork techniques studying under his father and later Kano Natsuo (1828-1898) at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts.
This work was commissioned of Katsuyoshi by Ohara, adding the word ushi, his title. Because Katsuyoshi died in 1908, his son completed the work for his father in 1909, as indicated in the inscriptions on the vase and box. Ohara ushi mentioned here as commissioner of the work is probably Ohara Magozaburo (1880-1943) who was one of the most powerful businessmen at that time and also was the founder of the Ohara Museum of Art in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture.