A bronze okimono of Ryujin (the dragon king of the sea) By Otake Norikuni, Meiji era (1868-1912), 1880s Constructed in three separate sections, Ryujin, wearing an elaborate helmet surmounted by a dragon and standing barefoot with his hands grasping a (missing) tide-controlling tama (sacred jewel) on a winged dragon-fish resting on spumy waves, set on a rectangular plinth with corner brackets in the form of stylised dragons in turn resting on an inswept base decorated around the sides with 12 roundels enclosing in each one of the 12 zodiac animals, the whole raised on four tall archaic mask feet, the underside of the base signed Dai Nippon Tokyo no ju Otake Norikuni sei. Overall height: 61.5cm (24¼in) high. (2). 注脚 Compare a bronze group by the same artist in the Khalili collection depicting the sea-god Haneakarutama (essentially, the purely Japanese equivalent of Ryujin) presenting the jewel to Susanoo, illustrated in Oliver Impey and Malcolm Fairley, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Japanese Art, vol.2, Metalwork, London, The Kibo Foundation, 1995, cat.no.98; for a related version by Oshima Joun and others, made for the Second Naikoku Kangyo Hakurankai (Domestic Industrial Exposition) of 1881, see Oliver Impey and Malcolm Fairley, The Dragon of the Sea, Japanese Decorative Art of the Meiji Period from the John R. Young Collection, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 1991, cat.no.11.