Title: Pair of Samurai Figures
Date: circa 1890
Location: Japan
Materials: bronze, thick gilding, silver and shakudo
Dimensions: height 223 and 226 cm (overall), 99 and 104 cm (figures)
Accession Number: M 118
Other Notes:
A pair of large bronze figures of samurai warriors, each dressed in richly brocaded clothes and wearing full armour. One with a coiled-dragon motif in relief on the do (body armour), which also bears scattered aoi mon. The other armour with a shishi and brocade ball emblazoned on the front of the do amid persimmon mon. Each soldier armed with a tachi and aikuchi tanto and holding upright a naginata. Details picked out in thick gilding, silver, and shakudo. Each on a typical Miyao-style wood stand decorated in gold lacquer with ho-o amid foliate scrolls. The mon on the do repeated in the centre of each base.
Bibliography:
O. Impey, M. Fairley (eds.), Meiji No Takara: Treasures Of Imperial Japan: Metalwork Vol II, London 1995, cat. 109.
J. Earle, Splendors of Imperial Japan: Arts of the Meiji period from the Khalili Collection, London 2002, cat. 85, pp. 132–5.
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