Page 147 - Japanese Art Nov 9 2017 London
P. 147
This was a time when discerning collectors of Japanese piece the opportunity to depict the most extravagant
arts and crafts were becoming increasingly aware of female apparel, worn on such occasions, in minute and
Japanese lore and legend, thanks to books such as colourful detail. The other, a set of 12 plates (lot 291) is
Tales of Old Japan by Algernon Freeman Mitford (1871), still more broader in scope, leading us on an enjoyable
the more titillating The Nightless City: Or the History of fantasy tour through the customs of the 12 months,
the Yoshiwara Yukwaku by Joseph Ernest De Becker taking in not just the Gosekku (Five Festivals) held in
(first edition, 1899), and the numerous publications of the first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth months, but also
the Irish-Greek journalist Lafcadio Hearn, who lived in somewhat less well-known celebrations like the San’no
Japan from 1890 until his death in 1904. Yabu Meizan Festival in Tokyo’s Kanda district or a late-autumn tori-
and the other canny craftsman-entrepreneurs of Osaka no-ichi fair. Through the lavish use of enamels and
and Kyoto quickly adopted decoration that met the foreign gold, the visual and sensual delights of traditional
needs of this better-informed new clientele by including Japan were given portable form and enjoyed in the
such subjects as oiran (senior courtesans) picnicking drawing rooms of Europe and America, transporting
on the banks the Sumida River (lot 283); more obvious their owners to a glittering Neverland that continues to
ladies of the night such as the drum dancers of the port delight collectors the world over.
of Asazuma on Lake Biwa (lot 260); Prince Genji, hero
of the eponymous eleventh-century novel, magically NOTES
transported into the world of the nineteenth-century
pleasure quarters (lot 284); daimyo (feudal lords) in 1. For the general history of Satsuma ware, see Oliver Impey, Malcolm
procession with their samurai retainers (lot 256); scenes Fairley, and Tsuyoshi Yamazaki, Meiji no Takara: Treasures of Imperial
from the court life of the Heian period (794-1185, lot Japan: Ceramics Part II: Earthenware, London, 1995, passim, and Joe
257); and of course the ever-present Mount Fuji (lots Earle, ‘”Satsuma” Ware’, in Joe Earle, Splendors of Imperial Japan:
254, 268, 283, 288). Arts of the Meiji Period from the Khalili Collection, London, 2002,
pp.138-141.
Two of the most ambitious works offered for sale on
the following pages aimed to take foreign buyers on
a journey through time. One, a large bowl (lot 258),
features scenes from popular seasonal activities
including spring cherry-blossom viewing, autumn maple-
leaf peeping, and New Year celebrations, the last in
particular giving the painter of this lavishly decorated
FINE JAPANESE ART | 145
