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Requires Photography
Urazato, Fishing Village
Iizuka Shôkansai (Japanese, 1919–2004)
Japanese
Shôwa era
1953
Medium/Technique
Nemagaridake, madake, and rattan
Dimensions
Overall: 24 x 38 cm (9 7/16 x 14 15/16 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase with funds by exchange from the William Sturgis Bigelow Collection, Bequests of Mrs. Lydia Semple Hays, John Pickering Lyman Collection, Gift of Miss Theodora Lyman, Gift of Marion Breckenridge Patterson, Gift of Denman Waldo Ross, Gift of Patti and Dean Freed, Gift of Mrs. Frank Gair Macomber, Gift of Mrs. Henrietta Page, Anonymous gifts, Gift of Mrs. Benjamin Moore, Denman Waldo Ross Collection, Gift of the Estate of A. D. Weld French, Julia Bradford Huntington James Fund, Gift of Miss Lucy T. Aldrich, in memory of Miss Minnie A. MacFadden, Gift of Jan Fontein, Gift of Kita Kazuaki, Gift of Mrs. Albertine W.F. Valentine, Gift of Mrs. Henry P. Kidder, Gift in the name of Robert Hatton Monks, Bequest of Mrs. John H. Thorndike, Gift of Mrs. Dorothy Godfrey Wayman, Asiatic Curator's Fund, Gift of Hajime G. Kozuru, Gift of Miss E. Elizabeth Sears, in memory of her sister, Mary Crease Sears, Gift of Miss Patricia C. Holsaert in memory of Edith Perry Ballantine, and Bequest of Mabel A. Horne
Accession Number2006.1345
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAsia
ClassificationsBasketry
This basket is an early datable masterpiece by Iizuka Shokansai, designated a Living National Treasure in 1982. He was son and pupil of Iizuka Rokansai, two of whose finest baskets we purchased in 2004. Made from two types of bamboo and bound with rattan at its narrow mouth, this seemingly simple flower-arrangement container is based on a type of basket with a plain open weave, designed to keep fish alive in water after they have been caught. The form may be derived from a real basket, but it could also have been inspired by an idealized Chinese or Japanese painting of fishermen at work.
ProvenanceBy 1953, Mr. Chigasaki, Osaka; 2006, Saito Masamitsu, Tokyo, Japan; sold by Masamitsu to the MFA. (Accession Date: September 20, 2006)
CopyrightReproduced with permission.