A ‘WINTER’ CLOISONNE PLATE, BY NAMIKAWA SOSUKE, SIGNED WATANABE SEITEI

Cloisonnewith colored enamels

Japan, Meiji period (1868 - 1912)

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 cloisonneartist 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 snow-covered 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 and Sosuke as the pinnacle of Sosuke’s cloisonnework.

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 symbol of friendship and is also called ‘lucky sparrow’. Gilded rim, small bordure with very finely inlaid meander. Stylized cloisonneblossoms 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.