Page 110 - The Meiji Aesthetic Christie's Hong Kong.pdf

明心匠治：亞洲私人收藏明治時代精品
THE MEIJI AESTHETIC: SELECTED MASTERPIECES FROM A PRIVATE ASIAN COLLECTION

3835
A HAMMERED IRON VASE
MEIJI PERIOD (LATE 19TH CENTURY), SEALED SOBI (YAMADA SOBI; 1871-1916)
The ovoid form with short fared neck fnely hammered in low relief, the body section
encircled by a band designed with various animals, seal mark on base
14¬ in. (37.1 cm.) high
With original wood box titled tetsu uchidashi gunju kabin (hammered iron vase designed with
various animals) on lid, signed Yamada Sobi zo (made by Yamada Sobi) and sealed Yamada Sobi
on underside of lid
HK$800,000-1,200,000 US$103,000-154,000

EXHIBITED
Preparatory Offce of the National Headquarters of Taiwan Traditional Arts, “Japan Arts of
Meiji Period; Asia-Pacifc Traditional Arts Festival Special Exhibition,” 2011.7.8-2012.1.8,
cat. p. 81.
“Meiji Kogei: Amazing Japanese Art,” shown at the following venues: Tokyo University of
the Arts Museum, 2016.9.7-10.30. Hosomi Museum, Kyoto, 2016.11.12-12.25. Kawagoe
City Art Museum, 2017.4.22-6.11, cat. no. 85.
LITERATURE
Kuo Hong-Sheng and Chang Yuan-Feng, chief eds. et al., Meiji no bi / Splendid Beauty:
Illustrious Crafts of the Meiji Period (Taipei: National Taiwan Normal University Research
Center for Conservation of Cultural Relics, 2013), pp. 218-220.
Yamada Sobi was the son of Yamada Munemitsu (?-1908), a ninth-generation armorer who
learned metal-hammering in a Myochin-school studio. He was particularly skilled at the
technique of tetsu uchidashi (hammered iron) for producing three-dimensional, sculptural
works from a single ingot of iron. He participated in many exhibitions and received
thirty-fve prizes at national and international expositions, including the 1904 St. Louis
Exposition, 1905 Belgium World Exposition and 1909 Seattle World Exposition.
He was under consideration as Artist to the Imperial Household (Teishitsu gigeiin) but he
died before the announcement of those honors. His works are in the collection of major
museums including, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, The Walter’s Art Gallery,
Baltimore and the Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shozokan, Tokyo.
Sobi was highly skilled at creating objects from a thin iron sheet by hammering. Because it
requires great time and effort to produce large scale objects, the present lot is extremely rare.