A round suaka plaque with Shôki. Around 1900
Shôki is rendered as a half-length portrait seen completely from the front with lips firmly pressed together and eyes staring upward, the garment patterns are rendered in katakiri, while other details such as the belt and the hilt of the sword are rendered in shakudô, shibuichi, silver and gold. Signed Hôshû Shômin horu with pot seal reading Kosho. The whole set within a brass border and in the original black lacquer frame.
Diameter including frame 37 cm
According to Chinese legend, Shôki, a former unsuccessful civil servant candidate, became a tireless hunter of devils and demons. Here, his fierce appearance with a wild beard expresses his determination to rid the world of evildoers.
The round panel in its original frame was created by Unno Shômin (1844-1915), one of the most famous metal artists of his time. He learned the kinko craft from his father Unno Yoshimori (1785-1862) and Hagiya Katsuhira (1804-1886) in Mito, a fief in what is now Ibaraki Prefecture. When he moved to Tokyo shortly after 1868, he changed his name from Kihei to Shômin. The 1878 and 1881 law banning the carrying of swords (haitôrei) hit him particularly hard as a kinko master, since he thus lost his commissions. Nevertheless, he took part in the First National Industrial Exhibition in 1877 and exhibited figures and other works. For the third exhibition in 1890, he submitted the bugaku sculpture of Ranryôô, which was purchased by the Imperial Household. Also, his work shown at the World's Fair in Paris in 1900 is today housed in the imperial Sannomaru shôzôkan. In the 1890s, he embarked on an academic career and was appointed Imperial Artist (teishitsu gigei'in) in 1896.
Provenance
Property of a Hamburg merchant family, traceable to the early 1930s
Literature
Cf. a similar suaka panel depicting the Shôki is in the Khalili collection, cf. Meiji no takara. Treasures of Imperial Japan, Metalwork, Part II, London 1995, no. 78 and V. Harris, Japanese Imperial Craftsmen. Meiji Art from the Khalili Collection, London 1994, no. 2, pp. 28-29