Reference has already been made to the rare temple pieces and sets which have been looted or purchased from Asiatic countries, so many of which are of rare cloissonné enamels. Some of these of Japanese origin are mentioned in [Chapter XIV]. Of the minor bronzes, replicas of temple relics, there are many beautiful koros or incense burners. Other bronzes serve the purpose of ornament in the Western countries to which they have found their way. In Fig. 68 is shown a beautiful bronze. The sacred carp is inlaid with gold and silver and is exceptionally well finished. The pair, of which it is one, came from Japan about thirty years ago, and are of much finer workmanship than many of the more modern replicas.
Household requisites as well as ornamental treasures have been made with care by hammer and engraving tool into things of beauty as well as usefulness. The household requirements of the Japanese are limited in number, but in the entertainment of her friends the Japanese lady is able to cause envy among her Western sisters because of the beauty of her kettles and brazier. The kettle shown in Fig. 66 is one of a toilet set of hammered brass, engraved with badges and foliage. It was probably produced early in the nineteenth century, before Western commercial ideas began to invade the workshops of Old Japan. In conjunction with such kettles (the Japanese name of a kettle is yuwakashi) metal bowls were used, the water being poured over the hands of the fair Japanese and her guests by attendants, who also held the bowl to catch the dropping water.
In Old Japan there was much patience as well as skill, and the methods adopted by the artists of those days would be too tedious and expensive now when the merchants buy and sell and compete in Western markets. The processes by which the beautiful bronze objects were moulded took time, and the incising and inlays could never be paid for in proper proportion to the labour expended on them. The metals of which Japanese bronzes were made consisted of curious alloys, the composition of which was long kept a secret. One of their finest brasses is known as sinchu, consisting of ten parts of copper and five of zinc. Another very beautiful copper is called shadko, in which splendid hues are imparted by the treatment of acids; in this alloy there is one part of gold to ten of copper, to which is attributable the splendid colouring of the so-called bronze. Older methods, however, are gradually giving way to more economic production on Western plans and formulæ, so that in time perhaps the Eastern and Oriental influence and characteristics of Asiatic bronzes, so charming and so much appreciated by collectors, may diminish if not disappear altogether.
XIV
IDOLS
AND
TEMPLE
RELICS
