The three and a half decades (1880-1914) which comprised the Golden Age were a formative period during which technology, art and the marketplace simultaneously converged, resulting in many innovations in the art of enameling that received world-wide recognition and were purely Japanese in style. The Golden Age of Japanese cloisonne is considered the “age of masterpieces.” Adachi Kinjiro’s distinctive signature, which incorporates hiragana characters within the mark, is illustrated as Mark 1 on page 208 of Coben & Ferster’s book JAPANESE CLOISONNE.

CONDITION is excellent, with only some minute pitting which is not uncommon on most cloisonne from this period.

The Amah (nursemaid) is dressed in a simple white cotton side-fastened top with four frog closures. Her faded pants had originally been blue. She has the larger unbound feet, showing her lower social station, and she wears a plain black cotton headband on her head. Her hair is painted black, with a carved black bun at the nape of her neck. The Amah’s wooden arms terminate in beautifully carved hands and fingers. The Baby is fastened to her back by a traditional Chinese baby carrier, which is nearly square and made of light blue embroidered silk. To each of the four corners is sewn a coarse muslin tie band, which are all brought around to the front and fastened by tying across the diagonal at the Amah’s mid-section. The Baby is positioned to look over its Amah’s shoulder.

The Baby wears printed cotton garments, with open-crotch seam striped leggings and a tiny checked and floral pattern top. A circular collar of stiffened embroidered silk covers the top. On its head, the child wears an embroidered pink silk cap with fuzzy “ears” embroidered on. The Baby is a totally separate Door of Hope doll which is tied into the carrier on the Amah’s back.

Door of Hope dolls have become highly collectible treasures, in part, because of their fascinating history. In 1900, five missionary ladies started the Door of Hope Mission in Shanghai. They opened schools for destitute young girls so they could learn to support themselves. As a means to learn sewing skills, the girls dressed dolls. These beautifully created and utterly different dolls are magnificent in their carvings and costuming. Heads and hands were carved from Chinese “Niponga wood” or pear wood, a light colored hardwood that is tough and difficult to carve. In its natural color it resembles the ivory of the Chinese skin. Touches of paint were then added for the lips, eyes and hair. The dolls were supplied by craftsmen skilled in wood carving and then meticulously dressed in Chinese clothing with amazing detail by the young girls. Frog closures, tiny undergarments and minute embroideries all accented these wonderful garments.

There were approximately 26 standard and premium characters representing differing Chinese social classes. Each girl could dress only about one doll a month, and the relatively low volume of production of these dolls has increased their scarcity. Production of Door of Hope dolls continued until the Japanese invasion of Shanghai in 1937, at which time most of the estimated total production of 20,000 Door of Hope dolls had already been made. The Amah and Baby pair is considered to be one of the harder-to-find premium Door of Hope characters, and this one would be a superb addition to any Door of Hope doll collection.

CONDITION overall is excellent. There is fading and minor discoloration on the clothing, both of which are consistent with age. These dolls came from the estate of a private collector. Metal doll stand is included.

Sumida Gawa wares were produced in the Akasuka region of Tokyo intersected by the Sumida Gawa (“gawa” means river), for which these ceramics were named. In 1866, Inoue Ryosai, a Seto potter, established a kiln in this district. He became renowned for the characteristic style of porcelain-bodied wares with transmutation (flambe) curtain glazes and applied figures in high relief. The earliest Sumida wares, which date from the 1870’s, have totally glazed bodies with either a flambe or splashed multi-colored glaze. Combinations of these color glazes were applied on the item in a manner that, when fired, the colors would flow forming streaked and contrasting hues. The finished splashed and flambé glaze color combinations formed curtains and droplets. Sumida ware was a hard white porcelaneous ware into the late 1920’s; production ceased in 1941. (Three similar vases are illustrated in Figures 340 to 342 on page 131 of “Sumida…According to Us” by Karp and Pond.)

CONDITION is excellent, with no losses to the delicate high relief flower.

CONDITION is excellent, with no chips, cracks or restoration.

Most andon plates feature the design known as “tetsu-e” (“iron pictures”), the freestyle images painted in iron-oxide pigments directly onto the clay, frequently of sparse landscapes or subjects from nature. Artisans drew underlaze pictures directly on the clay with iron pigments made from an iron oxide. Then they poured transparent glaze over the pictures. This plate is an example of Oribe glaze all over the tetsu-e instead of Oribe glazing only on part of the plate, such as a shoulder.

Produced mainly at the Seto kilns in Aichi Prefecture, oil dishes were special circular flat plates with a unique raised perpendicular outer edge. They were placed on the lower level of the andon lantern where they were used to catch oil drippings and soot from the burnt wick or oil feeder above. These plates were in use from the mid-seventeenth century, when andon were first used indoors, until the early 1900’s, when the use of oil lamps and electric lights became widespread.

The fascination of aburazara for the collectors of Japanese folk art lies in their bold painted motifs. Their simple designs always possessed a spontaneous vitality, and the decoration on this plate is large in scale and freely executed. Considered a quintessential example of Japanese ceramic folk art, Seto oil plates are represented in most major collections of mingei or Japanese folk ceramics. See “Andon (Lantern) Plates” by Yamazaki Masumi, the cover article in DARUMA 42 for many wonderful examples of these early oil plates, including Figures 21 and 22, which are similar in style to this one.

CONDITION is quite good for such an early andon plate. There are the fairly typical and expected areas of glaze loss on the rim of the plate and a stable old hairline crack, which are totally consistent with age and extensive usage for a plate of this nature. Very few aburazara survive in perfect condition because they were seen as ordinary everyday utilitarian wares which would ultimately be discarded. Such rough spots actually give these old oil plates more character, enhancing their folk art essence.

Its function -- in addition to being a sculptural work of art to be admired in its own right -- is as a hibachi, one of the small personal types known as “te-aburi” or handwarmers. These were created to appeal to the personal tastes of their owners. Smaller than a conventional hibachi, te-aburi were made for use by one or two persons at most. The bottom of the warmer was filled with ash on which a few small, glowing pieces of charcoal were placed, thus heating the surrounding metal walls. In Japanese homes where such luxuries could be afforded, custom demanded that whenever a visitor arrived in winter, the first act of hospitality would be to set a small personal warmer next to the guest to provide comfort in an otherwise unheated reception room.

Daruma, the monk who brought Zen Buddhism to Japan, has become a familiar and beloved figure with an important place in religion, art and folk culture. In Japanese folklore, he is widely seen as a symbol of good fortune and success through perseverance. The attractiveness of this Daruma figure is linked to the thickness of the metal and the quality of the casting, both of which are simply outstanding. This bronze hibachi was illustrated in “E-Katagami: Later Japanese Bronze Mirrors” by Les Page in ARTS OF ASIA July/August 2004.

CONDITION is excellent.

The name of this type of Mino ware derives from the textured pattern rouletted onto the clear-glazed portion of its surface, which reminded Japanese of the small, lacquered-steel horizontal scales that were laced together to form a suit of armor. Wooden roulettes were rolled horizontally over the damp form to produce these textures on the lower body of this bottle. Gourd-shaped sake bottles as well as small cups with this distinctive “armor” texture have been excavated from the kiln sites in the former Hirano Village in Mino and from kilns within the former Seto Village in Seto. The “armor” format was one of numerous novelties developed at late Edo-period kilns competing for the popular market.

Double gourd sake bottles like this one are found in several important private and museum collections of Japanese folk ceramics. The Morse collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, includes three such pieces in graduated sizes (Morse 1901: nos. 4291-93), and there is one in the Japanese Collections at the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. (See Figure 91 in “Seto and Mino Ceramics” by Louise Allison Cort.) A similar tokkuri is illustrated in Figure 61 in “Quiet Beauty” by Robert Moes which chronicles fifty centuries of Japanese folk ceramics from the world famous Montgomery Collection. The Montgomery Collection is widely considered to be the most important trove of Japanese folk art outside of Japan.

CONDITION is excellent, with no chips, cracks or restoration. There are some normal minor kiln flaws which are usually seen on old folk ceramics.

The bottom of the vase bears the red signature “Kutani, Suiho.” There is also a stamped Kutani mark beneath the glaze on the base. The wood storage box (“tomobako”) has the red seal “Kutani Yaki” and reads “Kabin (vase), Kutani, Suiho saku (made).” Suiho (Muranaka) was a studio potter who studied pottery fundamentals in the early 1900’s and later under master potter Nakamura Suitsune. Suiho received many awards in Ishikawa Prefecture Art Associations.

The kachoga motif of kingfisher and iris is more commonly found on Japanese painted scrolls and woodblock prints and less frequently on porcelains. The irises depicted on this vase, with their delicate blue, purple and yellow blossoms, are the type known as “kakitsubata.” Although this type of iris has long been cultivated in Japan, it is best known there as a wild plant growing in damp areas alongside bodies of fresh water. It is the iris most celebrated in Japanese poetry and art.

CONDITION is perfect.

About the middle of the sixteenth century, a new style of decorative finish was introduced that incorporated the texture of coarse cloth into lacquers. In this lacquered-cloth technique, which is also known as “pressed-cloth” or “red-cornered” lacquer, a fairly thin, coarse, grill-like cloth is covered with a thin layer of red lacquer, permitting the outlines of the material to be seen in slight relief. The material served two purposes. It reinforced the underlying wooden form and at the same time allowed the artist a contrasting color and texture to complement the smooth and elegant makie finish on the rest of surfaces. Lacquer boxes made in this style usually had four fairly large corner areas that revealed this undersurface, lacquered in cinnabar red. Hence this type of box came to be called “red-cornered” (“sumiaka”). This technique changed little for the next two hundred years and was usually reserved for large document boxes because their construction and finish were time-consuming and expensive. Because of the techniques involved, this style of lacquer is almost impossible to reproduce. (This unusual type of lacquer is described on page 142 and illustrated in Figure 43 in “Symbol & Substance in Japanese Lacquer: Lacquer Boxes from the Collection of Elaine Ehrenkranz” by Barbra Okada.)

CONDITION is remarkably good, considering the box’s age and fragility. There is some minor cracking in two of the corners of the cover and a few tiny dents and nicks, all of which is perfectly consistent with the condition in which these types of boxes are typically found in those rare instances when they do come on the market. A most impressive piece of early Japanese lacquer ware.

Chinese Peking glass is a traditional art form that starts with a one-color glass base, dipped into contrasting colored glass one layer at a time. The artist then carves away portions of the overlaid glass to reveal layers of other colors underneath, following certain designs. It is a lengthy and tedious process that is time consuming and labor intensive. However, the result is exquisite and exotic, unlike carved glass from other countries and regions.

The “I Ching” or “Book of Changes” is a book of divination which is believed to be one of the very oldest of Chinese texts. It has been used by the Chinese for some three thousand years in order to predict the future and has in recent years also enjoyed widespread popularity in the West. In the I Ching two three-line trigrams are combined to make a hexagram. There are eight trigrams, each named for a specific attribute, and sixty-four hexagrams. The solid line represents yang, the masculine, creative principle. The open line represents yin, the feminine, receptive principle. These principles are also represented in a common circular symbol known in the West as the yin-yang diagram. The shape of the yin and yang sections of the symbol provides a sense of the continual movement of these two energies, yin to yang and yang to yin, causing everything in life to happen.

A Chinese scholar’s desk would have been incomplete without a brush washer. The yin and yang design on this example has a symbolic decoration that would have been prized by the literati. It is uncommon to find this indispensable scholar’s item made of Peking glass.