- Title
- Incense Container (kōgō) with Design of Dragon
- Date Made
- circa 1900-1905
- Period
- Meiji period (1868-1912)
- Medium
- Cloisonné enamel with silver mounts
- Dimensions
- .a-.b) 1 1/8 x 2 3/8 x 2 3/8 in. (2.86 x 6.03 x 6.03 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2009.140.1a-b
- Collecting Area
- Japanese Art
- Curatorial Notes
The years from roughly 1880 to 1910 mark a period of exceptional craftsmanship and technical innovation in the field of cloisonné production in Japan that is generally acknowledged as a golden age of the art form. It also corresponded to a time of great interest in Japan overseas and a quickly growing export market. Japanese artisans were eager to produce works that would appeal to visiting tourists as well as curious Westerners abroad. The work of cloisonné master Namikawa Yasuyuki was very popular with foreign consumers, who appreciated the impeccable craftsmanship and highly intricate surface decoration. Along with bird and flower themes, which had been part of Japanese artists’ subject repertoire for centuries, Yasuyuki also selected motifs that appealed to foreigners’ imaginations and their notions of “exotic” Japan such as dragons, cranes, and phoenixes. Here, a three-clawed dragon rests on a flat brown ground of wireless enamel. At the edge of both the lid and bottom are decorative borders that harken back to Yasuyuki’s earlier works in which bands of tiny repeating floral shapes were used at the mouth, neck, and foot of vases, incense burners, and other vessel forms.
2025
- Selected Bibliography
- Singer, Robert T. Polished to Perfection: Japanese Cloisonné from the Collection of Donald K. Gerber and Sueann E. Sherry. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2017.
