Height: 28 cm. (11 in.)

Christie's London, Japanese Art And Design, 13 November 2002, lot 250.

RARE VASE BALUSTRE À DEUX ANSES EN BRONZE
JAPON, ÉPOQUE EDO, CIRCA 1701, SIGNÉ WATANABE MASATSUGU

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Lot Essay

The rim is signed in engraved characters on the base Meibutsu Asaoka hanaire o utsushite Watanabe Omi no Daijo Minamoto no Masatsugu gyonen gojurokusai kore o saku [made by Watanabe Omi no Daijo Minamoto no Masatsugu at the age of fifty-six, a copy of the celebrated flower-vase known as 'Asaoka'].This is a rare example of a Japanese bronze signed and inscribed, copying an earlier Chinese original, 'Asaoka', likely dating from the 12th to the 14th century. For examples of such bronzes, which were exceedingly popular in Japan during the Muromachi and Edo periods, see Rose Kerr, Later Chinese Bronzes, London, 1990, plates 34-38.