Panel

Location: Japan, Nagoya

Materials: cloisonné and musen enamel, framed

Dimensions: 36 x 53.5 cm (excluding frame)

Accession Number: E 64

Other Notes:

A cloisonné enamel panel of rectangular form worked in musen enamel with a view of the snow-capped Mount Fuji appearing above clouds. Framed.

Although a very similar panel by Namikawa Sosuke, exhibited in the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, is illustrated in the booklet published by Sosuke in 1896, the complete absence of any wires at all is closer to the style of Ando Jubei. Namikawa Sosuke, apparently by choice, preferred to use some wire: almost all the pieces by him in this Collection employ wirework. The mirror-like surface also suggests the work of Ando, though this is less than certain.

The dating of this piece has been problematic; the date above conforms to the sequence we suggest here for the work of Ando. The reverse is covered in blue enamel of rough texture displaying scattered fragments of randomly disposed wire.

Bibliography:

O. Impey, M. Fairley (eds.), Meiji No Takara: Treasures Of Imperial Japan: Enamel, London 1994, cat. 37.
J. Earle, Splendors of Imperial Japan: Arts of the Meiji period from the Khalili Collection, London 2002, cat. 176, p. 260.