Vase in a large ovoid form ornamented in relief with stepped bands of repeating triangular designs that meet and reverse at the waist. Of cast, textured, and polished bronze with silver inlay. Signed on the reverse with an inlaid silver and yellow bronze, seal-form signature by the artist: Kaishu (Takahashi Kaishu, the go or art name of Takahashi Isamu, 1905 – 2004). Showa 45 or 1970.

With the tomobako or original box, inscribed on the exterior of the lid: Kaga Zogan Kazari Tsubo or Kaga Inlaid (Bronze) Decorative Vase; and on the reverse of the lid: Showa Yon-ju-go-nen-do, Kai-sei Dai Nikkai Nitten Shuppin Saku or Showa (era) 45th Year (1970), Made for the 2nd Annual Reorganized Nitten Exhibition; and signed: Nitten Hyogi-in Kaishu Takahashi Isamu Tsukuru or Made by Nitten Councilor Kaishu Takahashi Isamu, and sealed: Isamu no In or Seal of Isamu.

This vase was made for exhibition at the Nitten in 1970, and it is illustrated in the Nittenshi, volume 33, page 231, number 205.

Takahashi Kaishu was born in Kanazawa, and graduated from the Tokyo School of Fine Art in 1929. In the same year he was accepted into the Teiten. In 1930, Kaishu exhibited in Belgium at the World Exposition and received an award, also winning a gold medal in 1933 at the Chicago International Exposition. After the War, Takahashi Kaishu continued to exhibit widely. In 1982 he was designated an Important Intangible Cultural Asset for Ishikawa Prefecture.

One of the most prominent artists to continue working in the Kaga metalworking tradition, Takahashi Kaishu specialized in bronze casting and soft metal inlay. His modernist adaptations of traditional techniques are widely collected.

For other examples of Kaishu’s work, c.f. Kagedo’s catalogue Yukei, numbers 163 and 164. For another of his pieces in the collection of the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum, c.f. The Art of Ishikawa, plate 288; and in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, c.f. The Art of Japanese Craft: 1875 to the Present, plate 18.

This Nitten exhibition bronze was a major work for Takahashi Kaishu. The form swells to the waist from a narrow foot and then curves back to an equally abbreviated neck. A sense of heavy mass floating between narrow poles surprises the eye. On this finely grained, black bronze ground, Kaishu inlays silver chevrons in narrowing bands that mirror each other above and below the inset waist. The silver ornamentation floats with faultless regularity over the surface, in counterpoint to its sculptural, balanced mass.