Goto Jujo

後藤寿乗Goto Jujo (12th gen)

5 ranked works

On the market now3 works

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JūyōVol. 28, No. 186 · Kozuka

Overview

Goto Jujo, given name Mitsumasa (光理), was the twelfth head of the Goto main line. He was born in Genroku 2 (1689), the eldest son of the eleventh head Tsujo Mitsuhisa, with the childhood name Kameichi, later Mitsuyuki. In the eleventh month of Kyoho 5 (1720), when his father took the name Tsujo and retired, he succeeded to the house and took the name Shirobei Mitsumasa. One record adds that he died of illness in the second month of Kanpo 2 (1742), at fifty-four. The Goto were the house of iebori, the official carving of the shogunal household, and the published sources place him within its mid- generations as a head who looked back to the early masters of the line.

That backward look is the point they make about his manner. Among the Goto heads of the mid- period and after, they write, he succeeded with many works in the old manner of house carving. A self-signed of long-tailed birds is described as carved in "an old-fashioned, solid manner", showing the house style "to the full, with dignity and elevated tone". His material is the canonical one of the house: and of with gold crest work and a gold-covered reverse, and in solid gold, carved in full sculptural .

Five pieces now stand under his name. The first is a kirin signed Goto Mitsumasa with his , the unsigned but given to him. A single kirin, the auspicious beast said in China to appear before a sage, is set as a gold crest on each part, each in a different pose. The commentary writes that his work is called archaic and that this kirin recalls "the Goto works of an earlier age", with a calm, dignified bearing. The second is the long-tailed bird set, signed on the and , with an of Meiwa 5 (1768) by his son Mitsutaka. The third is a coiled-dragon set, unsigned and attributed to him by the same son with a gold signature and an of An'ei 3 (1774). Its gold is laid thick and generous, the roots and reinforcing pieces finished with care, and the published sources call it "a fine set with a formality like a model of the Goto house".

The fourth, a turtle-in-flowing-water set, is attributed to him by the fifteenth head Shinjo Mitsuyoshi. Here the gold is used only for the flowing water and the dew, set against the deep black of the for contrast, and the record calls it a fine piece handed down in the main Tokugawa house. The fifth piece stands apart: a -period of the two immortals Chobo and Cho Hakubo, which is not his own work but an earlier head's crest that he appraised as Kojo's, inscribing his name Mitsumasa beside it and issuing an of Kyoho 14 (1729) valuing it at one hundred .

The appraisals by his son matter to the record. Of the long-tailed bird set the commentary says that a son judging his father's work is the most certain of appraisals, and of the coiled-dragon set that such a judgment carries the same weight as the maker's own signature. His self-signature, on two of the five pieces, therefore sits beside the son's appraisals as the documentary basis of his work, while his own name on the Kojo marks him as a certifying head of the house rather than its maker.

His record is five works designated , two of them self-signed. With so small a body of work, each set is a document of the Goto main line in the mid- period, and a Jujo reaches a collector only rarely.

Historical importance

Where Goto Jujo stands among comparable artisans: across all of nihontō, and within tradition, era, and period. The tiers (Foremost · Leading · Major · Notable) weigh official designations from the NBTHK and Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, together with historical honors of lasting repute such as the Sansaku and Meibutsu-chō.

随一
Foremost
屈指
Leading
有数
Major
著名
Notable

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Designations

Kokuhō—
Jūyō Bunkazai—
Jūyō Bijutsuhin—
Gyobutsu—
Tokubetsu Jūyō—
Jūyō Tōken5

Elite Standing

Kantei

Provenance

Work Types

Distribution across 5 ranked works

Signatures

Signature types across 5 ranked works

Currently Available

Lineage

Other artisans of the Goto school

  1. 1.Goto Joshin後藤乗真5 for sale68designated
  2. 2.Goto Yujo後藤祐乗41designated
  3. 3.Goto Kenjo後藤顕乗2 for sale46designated
  4. 4.Goto Sojo後藤宗乗1 for sale56designated
  5. 5.Goto Teijo後藤程乗10 for sale42designated
  6. 6.Goto Eijo後藤栄乗5 for sale35designated
  7. 7.Goto Renjo後藤廉乗7 for sale35designated
  8. 8.Goto Kojo後藤光乗2 for sale30designated
  9. 9.Goto Tokujo後藤徳乗3 for sale33designated
  10. 10.Goto Tsujo後藤通乗4 for sale29designated
  11. 11.Goto Enjo後藤延乗4 for sale19designated
  12. 12.Goto Hojo後藤方乗18designated

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