Page 154 - Fine Chinese, Japanese and Buddhist Art September 28, 2018 Galerie Zacke

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A ‘WINTER’ CLOISONNÉ PLATE, BY NAMIKAWA SOSUKE, SIGNED WATANABE SEITEI
Japan, Meiji period (1868 - 1912)
Cloisonné with colored enamels

Watanabe Shotei aka Watanabe Seitei (1851 in Edo – 1918) was a Nihonga painter and one
of the first to visit Europe, attending the 1878 International Exhibition in Paris and being
awarded a medal. His works have enjoyed great popularity in the West, and a large number
are to be seen in both European and American collections. On his return from Europe, Seitei
started to create designs for cloisonné, working closely with the accomplished cloisonné
artist Namikawa Sosuke (1847–1910), this cooperation leading to further acclaim from ab-
road. Sosuke’s perhaps greatest achievement was his development of a technique called
musen-shippo, also known as wireless enameling. This enabled him and Seitei exclusively to
recreate brush painting on paper or silk in cloisonné, a modus operandi completely unknown
before and well visible on this plate, with the multicolored enamels in the snow-covered tree,
and a little icicle dropping down like the picturesque stroke of a brush. Today, some collec-
tors regard the output of the short yet fruitful cooperation between Seitei and Sosuke as the
pinnacle of Sosuke’s cloisonné work.
Technically speaking, this work is a combination of inlaid wire and musenshippo, which marks
the transition from one technique to the other. It can hence be dated to after 1879, because
it must have been created shortly after Seitei’s return from Europe. The flat, four-lobed plate
shows a brown sparrow, or suzume, sitting on the snow-covered branch of a pine tree on a
light grey background. His wings are retracted as he is visibly freezing. The sparrow is a sym-
bol of friendship and is also called ‘lucky sparrow’. Gilded rim, small bordure with very finely
inlaid meander. Stylized cloisonné blossoms and many spirals on the black-grey underside.
Shape: Clover shaped plate
Dimensions: 28.8 cm (diameter)
Condition: Very good condition
Provenance: Austrian private collection
Auction result comparison: For a similar plate by Namikawa Sosuke depicting a sparrow in
the spring see Bonhams, Fine Japanese Art, 13 September 2017, lot 1020.
EstimateġEUR 5.000,-
Starting price EUR 2.500,-

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