A PAIR OF IMPRESSIVE JAPANESE INLAID BRONZE VASES

MEIJI PERIOD, 19TH CENTURY

The tall baluster bodies decorated with large cartouches inlaid in silver, gold, and shakudo with many figures in mountainous river landscapes, one panel with itinerant entertainers in the foreground, manzai, two men having a meal in a thatched hut behind and others in a pleasure barge in the background; the reverse with a musician playing the flute, two men drinking sake under a sakura tree, and a couple admiring the cherry blossoms; the other vase with a maid bringing a meal to a couple seated under a veranda and the reverse with travellers by a bridge, possibly Togetsukyo (the "Moon Crossing Bridge") in Arashiyama, all reserved on a dense ground of flowerheads in rhomboid cells, the mon for the Yonekura clan, both bases signed Dai Nihon Saikyo Inoue sei, Yoshiteru saku, both 41cm. (2)

See Bonhams London, 10th November 2016, lot 487, for a single vase of related shape and of similar decoration.