Anonymous

Meiji period 20th century

1910

Dolls

A pair of Japanese Hina dolls. These dolls are Dairi-Bina (the Imperial Couple) in the Plumper style of the mid-nineteenth century. The dolls were made on “the lucky day” of February 1910 just at the end of the Meiji Period. Made of beautiful fabric and embroidery, the hands, feet and heads are made of wood painted in Gofun powder “oyster shell” paint with inlayed glass eyes and real human hair.

Every year in Japan on the 3rd of March the Japanese people celebrate Hinamatsuri (Dolls Day) parents take their children to buy and display dolls. A miniature representation of Japanese figures of all kinds from emperors to warriors and house furnishings.  

Anonymous

Size Empress 229mm x 254mm

Size Emperor 241mm x 254mm

Underwood & Underwood

1904

Stereoview photo cards

Two Stereoscope photo cards were made by Underwood & Underwood of Ottawa, Kansas, and the Keystone View Company, of Meadville, Pennsylvania. The cards would be placed into a viewing device that would create a three-dimensional effect when viewing the two images on the card.

The images are a snapshot of Namikawa Yasuyuki’s workshop and home. Card number 69 shows the workshop with many craftsmen working on items such as vases, koros and other items. They are both applying wirework and enamel pastes before firing. Namikawa himself overlooks the work taking place and in the background can be seen the hundreds of enamel mixtures he had developed himself over many years.

Card number 70 shows Namikawa kneeling with his wife and his daughter standing while feeding the koi carp in the fishpond. In the background is Namikawa’s garden. It was said that he would often have visitors shown around the garden before presenting them with a number of cloisonne items that could be purchased by the guests.

Imprinted copyright 1904 Underwood & Underwood.

Size 177mm x 88mm

Anonymous

Meiji period, 19th century

1868-1912

Bamboo vase

A very large stained madake bamboo ikebana vase, a very extreme free weave with overlapping and layering of thicker bamboo. What at first looks chaotic soon reveals its self as a very thought out and ordered layering and weaving of lengths of bamboo. Designed for the art of ikebana the rim is of a traditional flat ring to support the flower arranging.

Unsigned

470mm x 420mm

Meizan

Meiji period, 19th century

1868-1912

Handle

A beautifully carved bone handle of three toads on a branch. A large warty toad with black coral eyes stands atop the branch looking down upon a smaller toad while another crawls up the back.

The handle is carved out of what seems to be a femur or shin bone, most likely a dear bone. The ball joint makes a perfect shape to carve the head of the handle to fit the hand beautifully. This would have been carved to be used on items like a walking stick or parasol.

It is signed on the lower part by the artist Meizan. There are known netsuke with this signature but nothing is known about the artist.

Signed Meizan

235mm x 30mm

AUDSLEY, George Ashdown. The Ornamental Arts of Japan.

Folio Books

First edition in book form, originally issued in two folio volumes by the author George Ashdown Audsley. One of the first large publication of Japanese Meiji period art in the late 19th century. The books contain text and plates in nine sections on the subjects of painting, embroidery, textiles, lacquer, incrusted work, metal-work, cloisonné enamel, modeling, carving, and heraldry with extensive notes on unpaginated leaves opposite each plate.

“In this splendid work…we have the most perfect view of Japanese art which has yet been published. No effort has been spared, either by the author or publisher, to produce this satisfactory result. The collections of Europe and America have been ransacked to supply the finest examples for illustration, the most skillful lithographers of Paris and Berlin have been employed to furnish the plates, and the aid of the most learned students of Japan and her arts has been called in to assist the cultivated connoisseurship of the author” (Acad., xxx, 141, in Allibone).

George Ashdown Audsley (1838-1925) was ” a Scottish architect, designer, and writer. He was among the earliest publishers to exploit the graphic potential of chromolithography, and, contrary to other major books on ornament, he made a case for classifying designs by their basic motif rather than by nationality. He was an expert on Japanese art, lecturing on the subject and between 1870 and 1884 producing several books that proved influential as sources for japonaiserie, among them Keramic Art of Japan and The Ornamental Arts of Japan. In the 1890s he produced with Maurice Ashdown Audsley an ambitious guide entitled The Practical Decorator and Ornamentalist. In 1892 he moved to New York, where he continued to produce handbooks on applied ornament, turning and stenciling with his son Berthold Audsley” (Grove Dictionary of Art).

This grand work has been hailed as the most beautiful art book of the late 19th century.

Avery Catalogue, p. 34. Allibone supplement, p. 61. Cordier 628. Item #00934

AUDSLEY, George Ashdown

410mm x 340mm

Anonymous

Meiji period, 19th century

1868-1912

Kogo

A small ivory kogo with a finely carved coiling dragon on the lid. The ivory would have been turned on a lathe giving it a perfect cylindrical body. These small boxes were typical of the Meiji period for exporting to the west, though these boxes were designed to hold incense they would have been used for holding all sorts of thing in the west. Incense burning would have been alien to most western people and would have only known of something similar in the catholic faith. This would have possibly been used for housing a lady’s makeup or holding small trinkets or even been a gentleman’s snuff box.

Unsigned

64mm x 42mm

Anonymous

Taisho / Showa period 20th century

1926-1940

Kimono

A Silk crêpe wedding kimono with 'swinging sleeves. On a black ground is a design of multi-coloured chrysanthemums. The decoration is resist-dyed. This would have been made as a one-off kimono only for a wedding. The Mon (family crest) of the Toyotomi clan is situated on both shoulder and back making it a highly formal kimono.

Size 1400mm x 1400mm