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The Vase Samurai Outstanding V&A collection of Japanese enamels coming to Horsham Museum You’ll have probably heard of the V&A, possibly in relation to the major exhibition on the life and music of David Bowie currently at the museum. The Thin White Duke might provide headlines, but the Victoria and Albert Museum in London also has the world's largest collection of decorative arts and designs with over 4.5 million objects. Many of these items (paintings by Raphael and Rembrandt, The Becket Casket, Bernini sculptures, a 1699 Stradivari violin, and ceramics dating back to the Ming Dynasty to name but a few are practically priceless. So it comes as something of a surprise to hear that the V&A Museum is coming to Horsham… An exhibition of 61 Japanese treasures, running from 15th June to 22nd September, will be one of the most important ever seen at Horsham Museum. The outstanding collection of Japanese Cloisonné enamels was given to the V&A by the successful businessman Edwin Davies CBE. It was his vision that a selection of items should tour the country and Horsham District Council’s Horsham Museum & Art Gallery is just one of ten venues nationwide that will be able to display these masterpieces of Japanese art and craft. Japanese cloisonné are not only highly beautiful objects; they are fascinating examples of Japanese cultural and industrial policy. If you want to envisage the golden age
of the craft, then it is the era portrayed in the 2003 film The Last Samurai, albeit without the Tom Cruise element. It was a time when Japan’s old feudal society rapidly transformed itself, and the craftsmen who made the celebrated Samurai armour and weapons instead became masters of a new craft, namely enamels!
‘A former samurai was forced to find new ways to make a living and produced a small cloisonné enamel dish’ They created Cloisonné enamels, which had traditionally been used sparingly on architecture and sometimes sword fittings. Cloisonné is a method of enamelling an item by using fine wire to outline the decorative areas (known as cloisons in French, hence the term cloisonné). Enamel paste is then applied before the item is fired and polished. It was around 1833 that a former samurai called Kaji Tsunekichi of Nagoya in Owari Province was forced to find new ways to make a living. It is believed that Kaji obtained a piece of Chinese cloisonné
enamel and took it apart, examined how it was made and eventually produced a small cloisonné enamel dish. Before long, Nagoya and the surrounding area became renowned for producing highly decorated cloisonné objects. By 1850, Kaji had taken on pupils and was appointed official maker to the regional warlord of Owari province. Kyoto and Tokyo soon followed as major centres of production and cloisonné enamels became very desirable objects in the west. By the end of the 19th Century, the art of cloisonné enamelling had become one of Japan’s most successful forms of manufacture and export. The peak of artistic and technological sophistication was reached during the years 1880 to 1910, now a period often referred to as the ‘Golden Age’ of Japanese cloisonné enamels. Superb pieces were made for display at the great world exhibitions of that time, as well as for general export. During this golden age, the Japanese perfected the art of making objects that appealed to the western market, so the enamel vases are decorated with