説明

An Important and Rare Joint Work of Goto Joshin and Goto Kojo Third and Fourth Mainline Goto Masters Among the many schools of fittings makers throughout Japanese history, the Goto school dominant in their longevity and success. Sixteen generations of mainline masters descended from the first generation, Goto Yujo, who worked for Ashikaga Yoshimasa about one hundred fifty years before the unification of Japan under the Tokugawa Shogunate. Successive generations of Goto makers sustained and improved the quality and workmanship and became the foundation for other great artists. Fittings made by Goto masters were especially precious and sets such as Mitokoromono (kogai, kozuka, and menuki, en suite) were used as exchanges of gifts to and between Daimyo and those of lofty social classes. Those with the means sought to build an entire set consisting of items from each Goto generation, a practice which continues to this day by enthusiastic collectors. Truly, this was an early example of the phrase “collect the whole set”. Because they were court artisans, the first four generations of mainline Goto makers did not sign their works. The importance of owning specific works brought many owners of items to bring pieces to later generation Goto masters for authentication, and on many works one can see the testimony of later generation’s attribution of a particular piece to a particular master. Of the seventeen generations of mainline Goto masters from 1440 to 1879, the first three generations are known as “Ko-Goto” or “Old Goto”, and consisted of Yujo, Sojo, and Joshin. Joshin’s work was born in the fury of the “age of battles” when the provinces of Japan were at continuous war. Although he excelled in the designs that all Goto traditionally made such as Dragons and Shishi, he favored powerful symbolic subjects such as Tigers as well. Joshin was a Samurai Henri Joly wrote of him “well known as a doughty soldier”. Naturally as can be imagined from his turbulent surroundings, man