JAPANESE AND KOREAN ART 23 march 2022

743
743
WATANABE OSAO (1874-1952)
A bronze okimono of three puppies
The single okimono depicting three puppies with floppy ears and
eyes expressing various degrees of sleepiness pile upon one another;
signed Osao saku with a kao on bottom
6 3/4 x 11 1/8 x 5 1/2in (17.1 x 28.3 x 14cm)
$4,000 - 6,000
Watanabe Osao was born in Oita prefecture. He showed an early
aptitude for art and enrolled in the Tokyo Fine Arts School, known
today as Tokyo University of the Arts, to study Buddhist sculpture.
He was quick to adopt European sculpting and bronze casting
techniques from Moriyoshi Naganuma (1857-1942), who had trained
in Italy. Watanabe exhibited in the 1904 World’s Fair (the Louisiana
Purchase Exhibition), the 1914 Tokyo Taisho Exhibition, and the
1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. He is best known for his extant
sculptures of shishi lions and kirin (a mythical chimera-like beast)
at Nihonbashi in Tokyo. Due to metal shortages in wartime Japan,
a number of his works were lost to requisition for melting and repurposing
during the war effort.
744
A BRONZE MODEL OF A YOUNG WOMAN
Meiji (1868-1912) or Taisho (1912-1926) era, late 19th/ early
20th century
Cast as a young woman shielding her eyes from the sun as she looks
at something in the distance, the hem of her kimono tucked up into
her obi, set on a later wood stand
21 1/8in (53.6cm) high
$2,500 - 3,500
744
120 | BONHAMS