Fuchi thoughts?

[Bugyotsuji]

On Sunday at an antiques fair the dealer gave me a Fuchi in thanks for a fairly large purchase. "This is worth around 10,000 En," he whispered as he popped it into the bag. He also gave me a fairly nondescript Netsuke which I had casually picked up earlier, and his wife gave me a coffee some chocolates.

 

Well, I drank the coffee and ate the choccies, :burp: but what do the honourable members think of this Fuchi? :|

[sanjuro]

The design is good but the execution is a little crude in some places. JMHO

[Bugyotsuji]

Thank you Keith. I can see what you say!

[sanjuro]

Piers.

Just to enlarge on my statement. Kebori or rather as in this case Katakiri, is reputed to be an imitation of the style of the kano painters. The incisions need to flow like brush strokes and any stilting in the flow as around the claw of the dragon on this fuchi, detracts from the overall effect. The incisions are accents as well as delimiters of shape. It is very difficult to do artistically in a medium such as metal using a chisel and tagane.

[Curran]

There is such a wide range of quality in this carving.

 

The Somin book (Grey has a copy last I checked) is very good at illustrating this.

You will see a piece that looks very expert fine by itself, and the book will compare it side by side to a masterwork.

 

Suddenly the fine piece looks like what an English friend calls, "as different as chalk and cheese".

[Bugyotsuji]

Really interesting.

 

I took the shot at Macro from 1 cm away so what you say is easy to spot.

 

Is anyone able to read the Mei, BTW?

[John A Stuart]

Hiroe 汎恵 or something along those lines. I can not find any artist that uses the nanori 汎 in this fashion. It looks to be a fairly modern make. John