Collecting Japanese Antiques - Alistair Seton

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you search around and keep a lookout for the interesting and beautiful, the faster your eye gets attuned to the new aesthetic, the new hierarchy of values. If you find that nothing much appeals to you, you are free to keep the old eyes and leave Japan the way you came-though aesthetically poorer. In Japan, you can get to know a unique sense of beauty. Cut off from outside influences, the cultural traits already here in the sixteenth century deepened and within a seamless social fabric developed independently. Many forms of art reached a perfection and originality unmatched elsewhere. Welcome to Xanadu and Kublai Khan's easterly stately pleasure dome!

      An Occupational Disease

      Those who spend decades here as collectors or dealers get jaded and appreciate less sharply the antiques around them. They may remember the wonderful things they saw twenty years before and seek the same quality. Though natural, this path leads to disappointment, like a fisherman recounting the fish that got away. "Distance lending enchantment," growing discernment, the vanishing into museums of many of the nicest things (making fewer available for later private purchase), and occasional theft, breakage, or vandalism are behind this occupational disease. Old hands see the past in rosy tints as they were younger then and prices were lower-and fewer collectors had money-just like them!

      If they say there is nothing left worth buying-a common complaint about fairs at Heiwajima or Kyoto, Osaka, New York, or London, there is truth in it-for those people. But readers of this book should realize that each age finds things to collect because the spirit of the age evolves, and generations die, leaving estates formed earlier with other tastes. The adventurous or imaginative will find things to collect long after some say nothing of interest remains. Morita Akio, former head of Sony, had the money to collect Impressionists but instead collected old Victrolas and other phonograph-type things. An investment banker, Richard Weston, came to Tokyo around 1983. He was taken with inrō and netsuke (ornaments suspended from the belt) and collected them. He soon assembled a collection good enough to be honored with an exhibition at Christie's in 1995, accompanied by an excellent book. If he had been dissuaded by older collectors, he would never have started on such a venture. We would all be the poorer.

      Others have collected inrō and thought there was little out there unrecorded, but Weston had an imaginative insight: one can assemble the full trio of netsuke, ojime (bead fastener), and inrō from singletons found separately, provided one is lucky and matches them with taste. In this way he built a valuable collection. These separate objects were made by craftsmen skilled in various trades. The sets were made to go together but the motifs were not necessarily the same. By doing the process in the reverse order, Weston found natural-looking pairings. Similarly, Robert Fleischel of Sage-monoya, Tokyo, found danglers hidden for 39 years in an attic.

      The Restoration Debate

      Most people agree that older objects acquire a certain extra quality through the years, and that this patina is valuable and should be retained if possible. In Japan it is called aji. If everything was kept as carefully as the Imperial treasures in the Shōsōin Imperial Storehouse-taken out only occasionally for airing and checking, never subject to wear and tear from puppies and drinks, kept safely off the ground away from humidity, and guarded against theft-then beautiful things of solid materials should live for centuries. In the real world, though, things do get battered and lost. Moving house, young children, smokers, carelessness, earthquakes, and fire are all causes of grief-and damage.

      Fig. 12 Netsuke, wood, of Kaibutsu, a mythological semi-human animal depicted in 56 ken Kisho (1781), unsigned, 5 in (13 cm). Photo courtesy Joe Kurstin.

      Fig. 13 Netsuke, ivory, of lkkaku Sen'nin, whose mother was a deer and father a magician, unsigned, ca. 1700, 3 1/2 in (9 cm). Magical hermits gave up worldly desires to reach a higher plane, but in carrying Lady Shanta over a river, lkkaku lost his supernatural power. Photo courtesy Joe Kurstin.

      When their condition deteriorates beyond a certain point, barbarians throw old beauties away without a thought. Those who care about their fate face a choice:

       To try to coax more life out of a piece by the equivalent of herbal medicine, without substantial surface change. If the patient has slipped beyond a certain point, surgery is pointless. Loving care in a hospice is better than trying to revive a very senior citizen. Instead of criticizing cuts or scratches, they should be treated as badges of honor in the struggle for existence.

       To operate surgically, believing that it is meaningless to keep alive a handicapped piece if extensive surgery will make it like new. In doing so, the oldster may lose the patina of age, but it will regain its youthful looks and be structurally stable.

      One strong believer in this need for resurrection is Kitano Fumio of Shiga. Aware that Japanese clients rarely purchase a chest if it is battered or dirty, he often has them stripped down. Broken parts are replaced and the chest is re-lacquered following the old methods-applying many coats of natural fuki-urushi lacquer-so the old can be whole and relive under a new skin. The natural materials bond with the underlying wood, so the lacquer helps to preserve the antique in its second life. He avoids fancy chemical finishes like polyurethane, as they do not bond, so one scratch and the whole effect is lost as the wood is not guarded. He uses waxes, not oils, to bring back the sheen where lacquer would not suit. He feels his approach is valid.

      Conversely, John Adair of Tokyo believes that radical surgery and complete refinishing are criminal. An antique must be in as original a condition as possible. To take away the patina, is to take away its very life. He would not buy any item which had lost too much. Hearing about a wholesale restoration, he expressed horror but was also grateful, as this should win him new clients who appreciate the unrestored. He can stress the original condition and authenticity of his own pieces to win new clients.

      Advantages of Working in Japan

      Many people are afraid of the word "antique" as it conjures up images of stupendous auction prices. Many masterpieces are already in museums, but the collectibles in this book are within reach- if you have money or work in Japan. Business people here can afford a little more than if they were living in the US or Europe. To persuade them to come so far, they have to be rewarded by a higher standard of living. Free housing, a car, and some entertainment and travel costs are often included in the package.

      But this is not all that working in Japan can offer. There is a self-restraint in the very air. Working Japanese save a substantial part of their salary and this rubs off on foreign residents. Japanese may live in cramped housing but have high disposable incomes because they hold down their inescapable expenses, taxes are not high on average salaries, and the employer pays commuting, unlike, for example, in Europe where commuting is paid out of post-tax income. Combined with low-cost lunches (no Martinis), and the private lives that Japanese lead, this means less stress on consumption. Outside you show or mention only what you choose.

      Fig. 14 Glass picture of a beauty, probably made in Tokyo, 1826-75, 15 x 10 in (38 x 25 cm). Photo courtesy Kobe City Museum.

      People in Japan do have money for nice things if they want to buy them. The items covered in this book range from museum treasures to ¥100 saucers and we maintain the convenient fictions that ¥120 = US$1, so ¥1,000 = $8, while $1.80 = £1. By the time you read this, the world's currency system may have been turned upside down, but people love a fairy story.

      From a historical perspective, the US dollar was worth ¥360 for decades till the Nixon crisis, was some ¥200 in the early 1980s, fell to ¥80 in 1995, and is ¥110 as I write.

      Fig. 15 Bronze, parcel-gilt boy and kitten asleep on drum, signed Miyao, Meiji era. Photo courtesy Flying Cranes Antiques.

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