Page 46 - The Meiji Aesthetic Christie's Hong Kong.pdf

3818
AN IRON ARTICULATED SCULPTURE OF A PRAWN
EDO PERIOD (18TH-19TH CENTURY), SIGNED MYOCHIN ZO (MADE BY MYOCHIN)
The iron prawn fnely constructed of numerous hammered plates jointed inside the body, the claws open, the body bends and the eyes,
antennae, limbs and fns move, the eyes fnished with gilt and the details of body embellished with silver, signature on the underside of fn
7¬ in. (19.4 cm.) long
With wood box titled tetsu sei ebi okimono kacchushi Myochin saku (iron prawn sculpture made by the armorer Myochin) on paper label

HK$240,000-400,000 US$31,000-51,000

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. 114.
“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. 13
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. 330-31.

This work is very unusual as it has some embellished details worked in silver nunomezogan (damascene work). The technique of nunomezogan
was introduced when the matchlock gun was imported into Japan by Portuguese in the late 16th century. The exotic decoration on the
matchlock gun became fashionable among the high-ranking samurai and quickly was adopted for arms and armors in nanban (“southern
barbarian,” or foreign) style. The iron armors and sword fttings made with nunomezogan were the specialty of a number of makers in
Kyushu, and several schools in Kyoto from the 17th century onward.