658 - Japanese bottle vase with sculptural dragons, patinated bronze, Meiji/Taisho period, circa 1900

Japanese bottle vase with sculptural dragons, patinated bronze, Meiji/Taisho period, circa 1900 Bronze, dark patina, bottle vase with sculptural dragon decoration, Japan, Meiji or Taisho period, circa 1900. Square seal mark of a Japanese company to the base, the company name could not be identified. Long slender neck with flared mouth above a globular body on a plain foot ring, the entire wall decorated in relief with a swirling ground of clouds and waves with spirals, applied thereon dragons in the round with scaly bodies, horns, barbels and open mouths, coiled around the neck, shoulder and belly. Condition commensurate with age, wall dented on one side, area at the neck restored. H. 36.5 cm. 360-degree photo available on our website. The Meiji period (1868 to 1912) saw an extensive production of Japanese metalwork for export. After commissions from the samurai for swords and armour had ceased, the metal workshops turned to decorative vessels and figures, which found a Western audience at the world exhibitions in Vienna 1873, Philadelphia 1876, Paris and Chicago 1893. The dragon, in Japanese Ryu, is one of the most frequent motifs of these works; it is regarded as a creature of water, the sea and the clouds and therefore rises from clouds and waves on such dragon vases. Companies in the legal form of the kaisha, as named by the base mark, only emerged in Japan during the Meiji period.