Meiji Bronze of a Tiger and Alligator, Signed

A Meiji period bronze sculpture of a mother and son by Atsuyoshi, she is shown seated on a gnarled rootwood base, with her arm round a crying boy standing by her knee and offering her breast, wearing a short robe, trousers and a cloth incised with Mount Fuji around her head, and bare feet. Signed Atsuyoshi saku, Maruki Shachu seisaku (??????????? (??????????). Japanese, circa 1880. Footnote: Atsuyoshi is known for a number of finely modelled bronze studies of both wild and domesticated animals, almost all of them made for the Tokyo based Maruki Company. This is therefore an unusual subject matter for him and Japanese bronzes in general , however Oliver Impey and Joyce Seaman, in ‘Japanese Decorative Arts of the Meiji Period’ (in the Ashmolean Museum Collections), pp. 68-69, include a bronze group of a woman who has just finished breast feeding...

A pair of Meiji period bronze vases, decorated in high relief, one with a pheasant perched on a branch of prunus blossom and the other with two carp swimming under a bough of wisteri...

A Meiji bronze vase by Nobuhira, of baluster shape with a spirally twisted neck, the body decorated with four high relief crabs and several partially...

A pair of fine Meiji period bronze vases by Hidenobu, each of slender baluster form with and elongated neck, worked in silver, shakudo and patinated bronze with carp swimming amongst...

Darker brown patina with fully articulated body. Purchased in London by previous owner.

Wonderful patina and fully articulated. Purchased in London by previous owner.

Dark greenish brown patina with fully articulated body. Purchased in London by past owner.

Dark copper toned patina, wonderfully articulated. Purchased in London by previous owner.