24 - KITAGAWA HOKUSEN I: A MAGNIFICENT AND RARE ‘EMERGING CICADA’ DOUBLE-GOURD BRONZE VASE, DATED 1922

KITAGAWA HOKUSEN I: A MAGNIFICENT AND RARE ‘EMERGING CICADA’ DOUBLE-GOURD BRONZE VASE, DATED 1922 By Kitagawa Hokusen I (Motoyoshi, 1846-1922), signed Mito Hokusen with kakihan Japan, dated 1922 The sentoku bronze vase of elegant double-gourd form, finely inlaid in shakudo and gold takazogan with naturalistic ivy leaves and trailing vines encircling the shoulder. The body is ingeniously fitted with a removable cicada husk that can be exchanged for a remarkably lifelike adult cicada, allowing the composition to represent successive stages of the insect’s emergence and transformation. Both insects are meticulously worked with extraordinary attention to their wings, bodies, and minute anatomical details. Signed to the side with an inscription reading “made by Hokusen at the age of seventy-seven” with an elaborate gold kakihan, and with a large circular seal to the underside reading MITO HOKUSEN. HEIGHT 26.5 cm WEIGHT 3.3 kg Condition: Excellent condition with minor expected wear, including a few light surface scratches mostly to the base. With the original wood tomobako (storage box) inscribed: “Carved cicadas on a gourd-shaped vase. Made at the age of 77. Kitagawa Hokusen.” Kitagawa Hokusen I (1846-1922) was a distinguished metalworker of the Mito school and one of the artists who successfully carried its highly refined traditions of sword-fitting manufacture into the decorative arts of the Meiji and Taisho periods. Born in Mito, present-day Ibaraki Prefecture, he studied under the renowned metalworker Sekijoken Motozane. His works are distinguished by precise modeling, sophisticated mixed-metal techniques, and an acute observation of the natural world. Hokusen achieved significant recognition during his lifetime. He received commissions from the Imperial Household, including a silver lion censer and a vase decorated with crabs in a stream, and was awarded a gold medal at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago for his silver bantam cockerels and gilt-bronze figure of a youth riding a tortoise. Around 1890, he also produced a hyogogusari tachi sword mounting on commission for the Mito Tokugawa family. In his later years, he continued to work in Mito and was associated with craft education at the Tokyo Fine Arts School. Works by Hokusen are preserved in the Tokyo National Museum, Mito City Museum, and Tokugawa Museum in Mito. The interchangeable cicada and its abandoned husk are an exceptionally inventive feature, transforming the vase from a static depiction of nature into an image of metamorphosis. By allowing the viewer to replace the empty shell with the living insect, Hokusen gives physical expression to the transition from one state to another. The theme is particularly resonant for a work created in 1922, the final year of the artist’s life. The double gourd, trailing ivy, and cicada further reinforce ideas of continuity, endurance, and seasonal change. Yet it is above all Hokusen’s technical conception - the contrast between the luminous sentoku bronze, delicate gold and shakudo inlays, and astonishingly naturalistic interchangeable insects - that elevates the vase into one of his most imaginative late works.