Vase with Garden Lattice Scene

Artist

Jomi Eisuke (Japanese, 1839 – 1899)

Date

Circa 1905

Medium

Bronze, silver, gold and shakudo

Dimensions

Work : 11 7/8 x 6 1/8 x 6 1/8 in. (30.16 x 15.56 x 15.56 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of Worldbridge Partners and The R. Scott and Lannette Turicchi Collection

Object Number

2018.45.3

Label

After visiting Japan in 1876-77, the British designer Christopher Dresser wrote: “No people but the Japanese have understood the value of color in metal…In many of their works we see gold, silver, copper, zinc, black-metal, tea-urn bronze, green bronze, and other metals…To them [these metals] are only so many materials with which things of beauty may be produced.” This vase bears the mark of a famous Kyoto metalsmith named Jomi Eisuke II whose workshop employed around 85 artists at its peak in the 1880s and 1890s. As is common on Meiji bronze work, the vase features a pictorial design picked out with highlights of gold, copper, silver and a copper-silver alloy called shibuichi. Japanese bronze work was much admired by Western collectors and formed a significant part of Japan’s export art trade during the Meiji period.