Hayakawa Shokosai I (1815-1897)


An Important Early Documentary Bamboo Basket for Tea UtensilsMeiji era (1868-1912), circa 1886Of stained madake bamboo, kanchiku bamboo root, and rattan, the cylindrical body and domed lid worked in vertical mat plaiting, the base in twill plaiting, the rim and foot-ring wrapped and knotted, the lid rising to a knotted fitting holding a bamboo ring, the two swing handles finished in wrapping and knotting, the interior lined with silk brocade, signed on the base Nanajuni-o Shokosai kore o tsukuru (made by Shokosai, aged 72)With a tomobako wood storage box inscribed on the cover Kanchikukonsei maru chakago (Circular tea-utensil basket made from kanchiku bamboo root), inscribed inside Nanajuni-o Shokosai kore o tsukuru and sealed Shokosai and another seal, affixed with four photographs of exhibition medals 9in (22.8cm) high
|Rightly regarded today as the founding father of Japanese bamboo art, at age 18 Hayakawa Shokosai abandoned his position in the service of a regional daimyo and wandered for several years acquiring new skills before eventually setting up a basketry business in Osaka in 1845. At first he wove baskets that were very close copies of Chinese originals, but over time he developed a new plaiting language and from as early as 1856 began to sign his work, gaining prominence on the national stage by receiving an award at the first Domestic Industrial Exhibition in 1877. The storage boxes for his works sometimes bear photographs of medals drawing attention to this and subsequent successes, as here; for further examples of this practice, see A+C VWG, Baskets: Masterpieces of Japanese Bamboo Art, 1850-2015, n.p. [Catalogue of the Naej Collection], cat. no. 028 and Melissa Rinne, Masters of Bamboo: Artistic Lineage in the Lloyd Cotsen Japanese Basket Collection, San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, 2007, p. 21.In point of unusual materials, in this case the root of kanchiku (literally, "cold bamboo"), a mottled variety that emerges in the fall, unconventional plaiting techniques, and novel form the present lot is an outstanding example of the pioneering creativity of Shokosai I's later period.