Signed Watanabe Seitei

Polychrome enamels with cloisonné. Japan, Meiji period ca. 1880

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 abroad. 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 snowcovered tree, and a little icicle dropping down like the picturesque stroke of a brush. Today, some collectors regard the output of the short yet fruitful cooperation between Seitei an 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 snowcovered branch of a pine tree on a light grey background. His wings are retracted as he is visibly freezing. The sparrow is a symbol 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.

Condition: Very good condition
Provenance: From an Austrian private collection

DIAMETER 28.8 CM