Page 70 - The Meiji Aesthetic Christie's Hong Kong.pdf

The Eccentric Genius of Jizai Sculpture, Itao Shinjiro

By Kazutoshi Harada
Professor Emeritus, Tokyo University of the Arts

Jizai sculpture of birds represents the eagle, raven, rooster, pheasant, pigeon,
quail and cormorant. Among these, the eagle is the rarest. To date, only four
articulated models of eagles––the present lot and three others––are known.
In addition to the eagle here is one in a French private collection that was
exhibited at the Tokyo National Museum in 1983. Another, also from the
Meiji period and formerly in the Kiyomizu Sannenzaka Museum, is now in
an anonymous private collection. The fourth eagle, signed Myochin Kiyoharu
明珍清春 and dated eighteenth century, is in the Tokyo National Museum.

The eagle offered here is the only jizai work that has the artist’s signature
Shinjiro 新次郎 on the body. The eagle originally in the collection of the
Kiyomizu Sannenzaka Museum is unsigned but can be attributed to the
same artist on the basis of an old document describing the work. According
to Shimomura Hidetoki, Itao Shinjiro was born in 1842 in Wakayama
Prefecture and moved to Kokawamachi, Higashi-ku, Osaka around 1890–91
(Shimomura Hidetoki, “Kiko Itao Shinjiro den––osorubeki dento gijutsu
no tososhi” [The Life and Career of Itao Shinjiro––The Revolt of an
Eccentric Artist against Traditional Handicraft Techniques], Museum 152,
Tokyo National Museum, 1963). Shinjiro excelled in casting, chiseling
and hammering metal. His jizai eagle was selected for exhibition at the
World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Other jizai works by
Itao Shinjiro include lobsters, crabs and dragons. He extended his skills at
articulated animals to a small, moving model of a steamship for which he
drew high praise.

Because there are no other articulated eagles signed by Shinjiro, I was
surprised to discover his signature on this sculpture while I was preparing the
exhibition Meiji kogei: Amazing Japanese Art at The University Art Museum,
National University of Fine Arts in 2016. I was familiar with Shimomura’s
statement that Shinjiro also used the name Kiyoharu 清春, which would
lead one to make the link to the eagle signed Kiyoharu in the Tokyo National
Museum. However, it remains unclear whether the artist of that eagle is
Shinjiro relating himself to the Myochin school of metalworkers by signing it
Myochin Kiyoharu or is another person altogether. What is most important is
that this is the sole extant eagle signed by Itao Shinjiro.

Like the great range of motion of the living eagle, Shinjiro’s sculpture rotates
An article about Itao Shinjiro’s iron at the neck and extends the wings, body feathers and tail feathers. It also has
articulated sculpture of an eagle a movable beak and claws. All these movements are remarkably smooth.
shown at the World’s Columbian The mechanism that allows the parts to move is fascinating. Each elaborately
Exposition, Chicago (1893), published
in the New York Herald newspaper chiseled feather is bundled at the end as if it were a rib of a fan secured by
a rivet. When the tail feathers open on one side, simultaneously the tail
1893年《紐約先鋒報》報導板尾新 feathers on the other side open by means of a gear wheel installed inside.
次郎製鐵自在鷹在芝加哥萬國博覽 Compared to the eagle here, the structure of the stretching wings of the eagle
會上展出 in the French private collection is more simple: one must insert an iron stick
inside the body in order to keep both wings stretched out. The elaborateness
of the mechanism that gives the present eagle its marvelous naturalistic
qualities demonstrates the advancements in articulated sculpture achieved by
metalsmiths of the caliber of Itao Shinjiro in the late nineteenth century.