A squat ovoid cloisonné enamel jar


Attributed to Namikawa Yasuyuki, Meiji era (1868-1912), early 1880sIntricately worked in gold and silver wire of varying gauge, the body with four elaborate rounded rectangular panels enclosing three tanchozuru (red-crested cranes) in flight among stylised wisps of cloud on a transparent mottled copper ground alternating with a majestic ho-o (phoenix) on a speckled yellow ground, the shoulder with a stylised butterfly framing the corner of each panel beneath a floral band, the short, slightly flared neck with a band of repeated formal flowerheads, all reserved on a reddish-brown ground, applied with a gilt brass rim and foot; unsigned. 16cm (6¼in) high.
|Very similar designs for the ho-o are illustrated in Yoshida Mitsukuni and Nakahara Kenji, Nakahara Tessen Kyo shippo monyo-shu (Nakahara Tessen's Design Sketches for Cloisonné-enamel), Kyoto, Tankosha, 1981, p.124, and those of the crane appear in ibid., p.127.