The English couple, who particularly enjoy wandering through local thrift shops in Surrey, are open to unusual finds; Karen always heads straight for the used books, her significant other for the vintage antiques. Today, they stumbled on something rarer than usual.
Karen’s fella, Ahmet, had found plunder—or so he suspected—and walked over to allow her a gander: a ceramic vase, smallish, 10 centimeters (approx. 3.9 inches) tall, that fit in the palm of a hand, covered in smoothly-polished, colored enamel decorated with hens and cockerels.
“Very pretty,” Karen said, somewhat dismissively.
“No! Look at the base!” Ahmet said.
On the vase’s bottom were markings etched in Japanese, the name of the artist presumably. The couple, who live in Epsom, at the time had no idea if it was authentic or a copy, nor its value, Canterbury Auction Galleries stated in a press release.
“He’s not an expert, but he does have great taste and an instinct for the ‘real thing,’” Karen, the seller, who wished to remain anonymous, told auctioneers.
The tiny vase set them back a mere 2 pounds 50 pence (US$3.00).
They would be shocked to discover its actual value.
They did some Googling and contacted Canterbury Auction Galleries and soon made a revelation. The vase was confirmed as the work of Namikawa Yasuyuki—the most famous Japanese cloisonné artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, alongside Namikawa Sōsuke, the auction house stated.
On learning this, Ahmet’s knees wobbled.
“He was all a-quiver!” Karen said.
“The exceptionally fine work and naturalistic depiction of cockerels and hens on a black background, with birds in flight overhead, was something of a trademark of [Yasuyuki],” specialist Cliona Kilroy, co-director of the auction house, said in a statement.
Cloisonné involves the intricate soldering of delicate, shaped metal filaments to a metal surface, creating enclosed outlines of a design. Next, tiny amounts of colored enamel paste are filled into separate spaces before the entire piece is fired, ground smooth, and polished. Japanese cloisonné, in particular, is famous for its glass-like finish.
The artist lived during the “golden age” of enameling in Japan, Ms. Kilroy said. “The beautiful work by Yasuyuki’s Kyoto studio is held in several collections and is highly sought after.”
Born in 1845, in his early life the artist was adopted and trained as a samurai, becoming the personal attendant of prince-abbot Kuni Asahiko. After said prince lost power, Yasuyuki was retained as a cloisonné artist and eventually garnered the title of Imperial Artist from Emperor Meiji around the turn of the century.
In 1876, he opened his Kyoto studio. He became renowned for pushing the limits of what was possible, using new and experimental technologies, enamels, and techniques. The work of Yasuyuki was soon exhibited around the world. He died in 1927 at the age of 82.
Canterbury Auction House estimates the vase will fetch between 7,000-9,000 pounds (US$9,000-$11,600) when it comes up for auction next week, on July 29-30.
Now, the couple from Epson plan to splurge on a holiday, depending on the final hammer price, and offer a generous donation to the charity that runs the unnamed thrift shop in Surrey.
