Vase in the form of three, grouped cubes set on their points with slotted openings at the top, the sides with finished as if with a roughly weathered geometry. Of cast hakudo or white bronze. Signed by the artist: Haruji Saku or Made by Haruji (Haruji Naito, 1895 – 1979). Showa 35 or 1960.

This vase was exhibited at the Nitten in 1960; and it is illustrated in the Nittenshi, volume 23, page 251, number 209, titled: Katamari or Blocks.

Haruji Naito was born in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, a region famed for its iron casting tradition. He exhibited at both the Teiten and the Shin-Bunten. After the Pacific War, Naito exhibited widely at the Nitten, for which he was honored as a judge. The Tokyo School of Art made him an honorary professor, and in 1954 he won a Japan Arts Academy prize. The Japanese government distinguished him with the purchase of his work, and Haruji Naito was chosen to cast the sacred mirror for the Imperial Shrines at Ise.

For other examples of his work, c.f. the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art catalogue, Modernism and Craftsmen: the 1920’s to the 1930’s, pages 94 – 101, numbers 71 – 80.