Page 144 - Bonhams Fine Japanese Art London Nov. 2019

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AN IRON JIZAI OKIMONO (ARTICULATED MODEL) Compare an almost identical articulated iron larger dragon forged with
OF A DRAGON the same construction and delineation of limbs, spines and horns but
Meiji (1868-1912) or Taisho (1912-1926) era, with gilt embellished flames, illustrated in Kuo Hong-Sheng and Chang
late 19th/early 20th century Yuan-Feng, eds., Mingzhi zhi mei (Beauty of Meiji Period) / Splendid
Realistically rendered with a long serpentine and undulating body, Beauty: Illustrious Crafts of the Meiji Period, Taipei, National Taiwan
forged with numerous hammered scales joined inside the body with Normal University Research Centre for Conservation of Cultural Relics,
karakuri tsunagi, the leg joints, head, mouth, tongue and ears each 2013, pp.294-297.
constructed of moving parts, unsigned; with a wood storage box.
53cm (20 7/8in) long. (2). Of all the categories of late Edo-period and Meiji-period artefacts
eagerly collected outside Japan overthe last century and a half,
£15,000 - 20,000 articulated animals have left the least trace of documentary evidence
JPY2,000,000 - 2,600,000 concerning their origin and development. Even the Japanese word for
US$18,000 - 25,000 them, jizai or jizai okimono, appears to be a post-Edo term. Despite the
obscurity of their origins, these displays of Oriental dexterity perfectly
Provenance: matched a trend in Western Orientalist taste in the last decades of
An English private collection. the 19th century. In the West they were first highlighted in Le Japon
Artistique of 1881 which reproduces an articulated frog in three
different positions and describes it in detail. These articulated animals
were only brought back to the attention of Japanese audiences in
October 1983, when several examples were displayed in the special
exhibition Nihon no kinko (Japanese Metalwork) held at
Tokyo National Museum.

For details of the charges payable in addition to the final Hammer Price of each Lot
142 | BONHAMS please refer to paragraphs 7 & 8 of the Notice to Bidders at the back of the catalogue.