Page 85 - The Meiji Aesthetic Christie's Hong Kong.pdf

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AN IRON ARTICULATED SCULPTURE OF A MYTHICAL BEAST (SHACHI)
EDO PERIOD (18TH-19TH CENTURY)
The russet-iron mythical beast with tiger head and fsh body fnely constructed of numerous
hammered plates jointed inside the body; the mouth opens, the tongue moves, the fns open
and spread and the body bends, the head applied with elaborate horns and spines and the eyes
of shakudo embellished with gilt
20Ω in. (52.1 cm.) long

HK$2,800,000-4,000,000 US$360,000-513,000

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. 111.
“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. 4.
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. 354-359.

The sculpture is in the form of a mythical beast derived from an ancient Indian sea creature
said to have the body of a fsh and the head of a tiger, the literal meaning of its name
“shachi” in Japanese. Shachi were favored by Japanese samurai as symbols of defense against
fre, for the tiger-fsh is associated with water. Pairs of shachi were made as corner tiles or as
crests on end tiles of temples, samurai dwellings and castle gates throughout the Edo period.
An alternate reading of the creature as a dragon fsh, with head, as here, of a whiskered
dragon, may have originated from a Chinese legend of a carp that was transformed into a
dragon after ascending a powerful waterfall. Such connotations of striving against impossible
odds appealed to the samurai clientele for whom the Myochin school of metalsmiths frst
made them as display pieces (okimono). The overlapping plates of the fsh body are related to
the riveted plates of Japanese armor that provide strong protection as well as mobility.