Okimono or sculpture in the form of a pair of tortoises, one sleeping withdrawn partly into its shell and the other climbing onto its mate’s shell to keep watch. Of cast and cold-chiseled, yellow bronze, the eyes inlaid in shakudo. Signed on the reverse of the larger tortoise with a chiseled signature by the artist: Ryuki Saku or Made by Ryuki (Nogami Ryuki, the go or art name of Nogami Tatsuoki, active in Tokyo late 19th – early 20th century). Late Meiji – Taisho era, circa 1900 – 1920.

Nogami Tatsuoki was famous for his studies of tortoises, and was patronized by the Imperial Household Agency. He is mentioned in the 1910 article on Japanese metalworking, Japanese Art and Artists of Today (reprinted in Barry Davies’ exhibition catalogue, Japanese Metalwork of the Meiji Period, page 104).

An extremely lyrical rendering of tortoises, the claws of the female curled tight to her shell beneath her while the male’s curl outward and upward on one side as if just having swum to her side.