¥750,000

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About the school

Hirata School平田派

The Hirata school encompasses two distinct but related lineages of Japanese metalworkers bearing the Hirata name, each distinguished by its founder's artistic inheritance and medium. The first is the Hirata school of Higo Province, founded by Hirata Hikozo, a craftsman of *Shoami* lineage who served the celebrated warrior and tea master Hosokawa Sansai. Having accompanied his lord from Kyoto through Tango and Kokura to Kumamoto, where he died in Kan'ei 12 (1635), Hikozo established the artistic foundations upon which the Higo metalworking tradition would rest -- one of the four major schools of Higo *tosogu* alongside the Shimizu, Nishigaki, and Hayashi lineages. The second is the Hirata lineage of Edo, founded by Hirata Donin (Hikoshiro), a Kyoto-born craftsman who learned *shippo* (cloisonne enamel) techniques from Korean artisans during the Momoyama period. Summoned by Tokugawa Ieyasu, Donin relocated to Edo, where the Hirata family received a stipend and served as official artisans retained by the shogunate. The cloisonne methods were transmitted as *isshi soden* -- a closely guarded, single-heir tradition -- through successive generations, each head bearing the common name Hikoshiro, continuing into the Meiji period when the hereditary techniques were applied to the manufacture of state decorations. The two branches are united by name but diverge sharply in technique and aesthetic. The Higo lineage, inheriting the Shoami tradition, worked principally in iron and *irogane* such as *yamagane*, brass, and *shakudo*, producing the distinctive richly toned coloration known as "Hikozo-gane." The school's technical vocabulary includes *keshikomi-zogan* (flush inlay), *Amida-yasuri* and *Okina-yasuri* filing treatments, and the characteristic *Odawara fukurin* rim executed with a rope-pattern (*nawame*) finish -- a technique Hikozo invented that became a hallmark of the lineage. Openwork favored *kage-sukashi*, shadow silhouettes rendered with gentle chamfering that contributes to a prevailing softness of impression, while traces of black lacquer modulate the ground metal's tone. The Edo lineage, by contrast, specialized in *shippo-zogan* executed through gold-wire cloisons -- *kinsen shippo* -- fusing richly saturated enamels onto *shakudo migaki-ji* grounds. Donin's Mount Fuji compositions, rendered with striking seasonal variation, became the branch's signature subject. By the eighth generation, Harunari expanded beyond hereditary cloisonne into *chokin* (metal carving), uniting *takabori* with colored metals in gold, silver, *shibuichi*, and *suaka*, and producing works in which transparent, clear enamels replaced the earlier *doro-shippo* heaped in thicker relief. What distinguishes the Hirata name across both branches is the convergence of technical mastery with an aesthetic of dignified restraint. The NBTHK setsumei repeatedly identify in Hikozo's Higo work a "plain, sincere character" joined to "archaic elegance" -- a sensibility rooted in the *kanjaku* and *sabi* of the Hosokawa tea aesthetic, where a quiet, tranquil beauty forms within the single plate. Donin's Momoyama-era cloisonne, for all its sumptuous coloring, is consistently characterized as possessing "antique elegance and dignified restraint," with hues praised for their profound beauty beneath the surface opulence. Harunari, the most versatile of the Edo line, is recognized for gathering together the essence of shippo while demonstrating masterful carving skill, his best works described as "exceptionally dignified in tone." Whether expressed through the moist, iron-ground austerity of Higo or the jewel-like luminescence of Edo cloisonne, the Hirata tradition represents a sustained dialogue between technical refinement and expressive restraint -- a lineage in which the highest technique reveals itself precisely through the directness and spare elegance of the design.

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