Some of our more keen-eyed clients, collector friends and followers may have noticed that we didn’t feature an “Item of the Month” for June. The reason for this was that the work of art we had chosen to showcase was actually sold just days before we were due to publish the article.

However, we agreed with our clients that these vases are simply too good not to share, so with their kind permission, we are delighted to present this exceptional pair of Japanese Iron Damascene vases by the Komai Company and depicting the stages of Silk production.

The body of each Iron vase features a large central panel, each with a uniquely detailed scene of silk production depicted. The landscapes have a remarkable three-dimensional quality, achieved through clever use of inlay and layering sections of bronze and Iron with fine gold and silver wire to create perspective and depth. The scenes depicted on the panels include, harvesting Mulberry leaves to feed the Silkworms, feeding the worms, weighing the cocoons, voiding them and extracting the silk, drying it, weaving it on a loom, weighing the silk and then bundling it up for transporting to customers.

In typical Japanese style there are many charming details including Ducks swimming in the lake, and one figure wearing unusual glasses. The organic nature of the panels juxtaposes against the elegant geometric pattern of the ground, stylised Mon (emblem) and an interlocking key pattern are formed from minute individually carved and placed silver wires. With a band of fruiting grape vines in gold and silver to the neck and a band of geometric gold key pattern to the top rim.

Silk was first produced in China during the neolithic period (7000BC to 1700BC). Iy was rare to see this curiously strong, beautiful fabric outside of China until the famous Silk Road opened at some point in the first millennium BC.

The Silk Road was the first global trading route in history. It was established by the Han Dynasty’s expansion into Central Asia. Through missions and explorations, they brought the area under unified control and provided access through to East Africa and the Mediterranean. The name is derived from the highly lucrative trade in silk textiles that were produced in China and greatly desired in Rome, Greece and Egypt. But the Silk road transported much more than just fabrics, tea, spices and goods for sale. It facilitated the exchange of arts, culture, religion ideas and technology.

After the Silk Road opened, China retained a monopoly over the secrets of silk production and it would be another thousand years before any other country could compete. The playing field was levelled in 551AD by two Christian monks and a couple of bamboo walking sticks……

The two monks were travelling East along the silk road spreading the word of their God. While in China, they observed the intricate process of raising silkworms and extracting the silk. They knew this was valuable knowledge and so contact with the Byzantine Emperor Justinian It is unknown what he offered them in return for the precious worms, but no doubt it would have been worth the risk of being caught.

The monks acquired silkworm eggs and smuggled them out in their bamboo walking canes. Mulberry bushes were already present in the Byzantine Empire and so China’s monopoly of silk production ended. And the actions of those two monks would create the foundation of the Byzantine empire for the next 650 years.

Silk production in Japan is not commonly recorded until around 400AD. It is around this time that Chinese silk farmers came to Nara to teach Japanese people how to care for the worms. Silk was so popular in Japan that the government would even provide farmers and homeowners with silkworms to get started. This cottage industry allowed for some innovative techniques such as feeding the worms dyes mixed with ground mulberry leaves causing the silk they produced to be ready coloured. In typical Japanese fashion, the fabrics and patterns produced were extraordinary, and examples of the brightly coloured and highly patterned fabrics can be seen on many artworks.

After 551AD, silk from East Asia was less of a commodity than before and trade with Europe declined. However, in 1845 there was an epidemic among the European silkworms devastating the silk industry. The demand for East Asian silk once again increased. From 1850 to 1930, Japan’s leading export was raw silk, accounting for 20%-40% of the total exports. During the Meiji Period, Japanese silk exports quadrupled. Japan’s silk exports overtook China for the first time and Japan became the world’s biggest exporter of silk.

Silk production in Japan:

On close inspection of the vases, one can see that the artist has very skilfully documented the various stages of Silk production:

Silk comes from the cocoon of the larvae of the Silk Moth. The larvae was harvested by hand…

… and then removed / separated from the branches of the tree.

Meanwhile, Mulberry leaves were finely chopped for the worms to feed on.

The worms were placed on trays to feed on the Mulberry leaves.

The worms were left to feed. They would grow to be big and fat.

When they were ready, the worms spun their Cocoons..

Those Silk cocoons were then dried over a fire

… and then woven using a Loom.

Finally the Silk was ready…

…to be carefully weighed…

and then packed up and sold at market…

… where it would then be used to produce wonderful works of art and fine garments.

About the Komai Company:

Famed for their mastery of Zogan (Damascene work) the Komai family produced some of the most recognisable and breath-taking metalwork pieces of the Meiji period.

Like many metalworking dynasties, prior to the Meiji restoration (1868) the Komai family were previously sword fittings makers. In 1841 Komai Seibei opened his first workshop in Kyoto at 70 Shinmonzen street, he was successful but demand for his wares increased when he revived an ancient form of Damascene decoration known as Nunome Zogan.

A Masterful dish by the Komai Company and depicting a giant Sea Eagle ambushing a fishing village

Zogan is a beautiful and complex traditional Japanese craft which involves inlaying different coloured metal wires into a base material which can be metal, wood or even ceramic. In its earliest form, it dates back to the Asuka period (794-1185) though few examples remain. It was later revived and used to decorate samurai swords until the end of the Edo period when the carrying of swords was outlawed and the sword .smiths had to find other ways to make a living

Prior to the Meiji restoration, Komai was famed for its sword fittings, guns and daggers.  The third son of Komai Seibei, (Komai Otojiro) joined the business at the age of just 13 in 1855. He studied inlay techniques with the sword fittings artisan Misaki Shusuke and later opened his own shop at 33 Furumonzan street. He produced decorative sword fittings until 1876, but after the Haito Edict banned the wearing of swords in public the family had to learn to apply their craft to other items.

They produced many items to appeal to Western and Japanese tastes, including vases, plates, purses, card cases, jewellery boxes, buttons, vanity sets, incense burners, jewellery, boxes and miniature cabinets. The Komai style was very popular and was replicated by many other manufacturers. In 1873 Otojiro expanded his business to Kobe. He was very successful and bought a large house in Kyoto, sadly it was burned to the ground in a fire in 1885. Having lost everything, he then had to find as an in-house artisan for Seisuke Ikeda. He worked there for 10 years but due to contractual issues, he was unable to put his own name to the large works and Okimono he created for Ikeda Seisuke. He was however able to put his own name to lesser works such as card cases and jewellery boxes.

In 1894 Komai became independent again and continued to make affordable items, he employed many workers.. He used the income from the sale of lesser pieces to allow him to devote his time to honing his skills and making high quality Show Pieces for national and international expositions.

A delightful, miniature Kodansu from the Komai Company (Similar to one found in the Royal Collection)

From 1900-1915 he submitted works to more than a dozen high profile exhibitions and won prizes at almost all. Komai Otojiro died in 1917 and the business passed to his son Seibei also known as Otojiro II. hH continued to exhibit and opened another shop in Osaka. The second industrial revolution of the 1920s and mechanisation of many hand made processes meant the quality of . Komai’s works decreased significantly. The famous dragonfly of the logo was reduced to 5 straight lines and ‘Japan’ was added in English. In the 1930’s the Komai company became an agent shop of Mikimoto pearl store, selling pearl jewellery in their Kyoto shops. They continued to make their famous metalwork until 1941, after the second world war they focused purely on pearl jewellery and still exist as a company today. Albeit in a very different form from when they started.

A charming pair of miniature “Komai-style” soldier vases

Johannes Rein, a German geographer who spent the first five months of 1874 in Japan studying lacquer, wrote in his book “The industries of Japan: together with an account of its agriculture, forestry, arts, and commerce.”:

Until some twenty years ago, the decoration with such inlaid work was limited to places on iron kettles. At that time several skilful workmen, formerly armorers of Kyoto, especially Komai and Iyenori, turned their attention to the work, and have developed since then this branch of art industry in an astonishing manner, decorating large vases, smoking utensils, plates, dishes, and other articles of cast-iron with remarkable artistic skill, hitherto unknown.

In the summer of 1875, I obtained from a dealer in Kyoto the first pair of such vases – a work which at that time, in Tokio, attracted great attention among Japanese and foreign connoisseurs. They are now in the Royal Industrial Art Museum in Berlin. Later on, a second pair with similar work was sent to Germany, acquired by Dr. von Bruning, of Frankfort on the Main, and presented to the Industrial Art Museum at that place. These vases are designated by the authors as “the united work of Komai Yoshitaka and Komai Yoshihiro, inhabitants of Kioto, province of Yamashiro”. They are among the most beautiful works of this description, although they are the first of the above-named masters. The four fields, two on each vase, represent silk culture. The picture before us shows the end of the process. One girl is busy with the hurdles upon which the worms have been grown; a second collects the finished cocoons; a third brings them away; a fourth sits at the old simple reeling apparatus, a little stove with a coal fire, on which the water is being heated in the iron pan placed above it. She has thrown in a handful of cocoons and is about to reel off the silk threads. A fifth girl is busy hanging up the strands of reeled silk to dry. The fineness of the embossing goes so far as to give the pattern of the clothing, which is recognizable even in the small scale of the picture.

Many of these newer Zogan-works on cast iron are rendered more prominent through the steel blue or dead-black groundwork, a peculiar kind of “Niello”, which is made of lacquer putty, or Shakudo, and produces an effect like the works of Zuloaga of Madrid, whose name is known to every friend of art industry and visitor at the great exhibitions, by its magnificent inlaying of iron.”

We were rather sad to see these fascinating vases, truly a unique example of the unrivalled Japanese craftsmanship of the time, leave our collection before we had the chance to really enjoy them, but we are delighted that they have found a wonderful new home where they will be enjoyed by their new custodians.

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