A FINE KOMAI STYLE IROE-TAKAZOGAN IRON VASE WITH EGRETS AND FLOWERS Japan, signed on a gilt tablet to base Mitsuyoshi, Meiji period H. 20,3 cm One of the most characteristic types of the new Meiji period metalwork is that of the Komai family of Kyoto, who made this vase with its highly detailed damascene work. The Komai workshop is believed to have been founded in 1841, but it was only when Komai Otojiro I became its head, in 1865, that the company began to make the wares for which they were to become so famous. The workshop, under his leadership specialised in intricate inlaid work of gold and silver into iron. In a promotional brochure of about 1915 his son, Komai Otojiro II (his father having retired in 1906) called his workshop the ‘pioneer of damascene work’ and describes the process of the lacquering of the characteristic black ground, which required kiln firing and burnishing. North German private collection, assembled between the 1970s and 2006 Minor wear and very minor traces of age