You
want a bargain in Japanese art? Look for it anywhere but in
Japan.
When Kimio Koketsu, president of Ohya-Shobo, needs a print
for his 122-year-old woodblock shop in Tokyo, he often hunts
for it overseas. Japanese artists who are not well-known by
Europeans and Americans, he says, are still real bargains.
"I once bought a print in the U.S. by Kiyochika Kobayashi
[1847-1915] for $95 and sold it for $950 in Japan." Hiroshi
Fukuda, a specialist in ceramics who has run an antique shop
in the capital for more than 60 years, looks abroad, too.
He bought a Satsuma vase--Satsuma was once a southern province,
known for its pottery and earthenware--for $600 in the States
and found a Japanese collector willing to pay $2,000. "My
colleagues who buy in the U.S. say they can sell the stuff
for two and a half to three times more in Japan," he
says.
Who knew? Along with the precise method of
forging samurai swords, one of the best-kept secrets of Japan
is that great bargains can still be had in Meiji-era (1868-1912)
crafts--if you buy them outside the Land of the Rising Sun.
The prints, ceramics, ivories, metalwork, cloisonné
and lacquerware made during this period are among the technically
finest ever produced. Many were created for export to the
West, starting with the Paris World's Fair in 1867. For years,
because they were seen as "the Japanese image of what
Westerners wanted from Japan," such work was considered
"kitschy or grotesque," says Toshiyuki Okuma, keeper
of Japan's Museum of Imperial Collections. No longer.
Particularly prized is antique metalwork,
much of which was melted down during World War II for the
military machine. In the late 19th century unemployed samurai
armorers made ornamental dragons, snakes and fish--with linked
scales and movable arms, legs, tongues and eyes. Such exquisite
works, if you can find them, might run $10,000 and up.
Ivory sculptures are also very difficult to
find in Japan. Meiji artisans excelled at carving, articulating
each hair on the head of a monkey figurine, every feather
on a bird. For $100 or less you can still pick up a netsuke,
a tiny carved toggle often used to secure purses or hold tobacco
pouches (both Western introductions). A big caveat, though:
There are plenty of fakes and modern Chinese copies. Look
for natural wear, caused by purse strings, in the holes of
carvings.
More plentiful are Meiji-period woodblocks,
which can run as little as $50 apiece. Long considered the
ugly stepsisters of works from the Edo period (1603-1867),
such prints were sometimes later used to wrap fish. But their
subjects can be arresting--from news events and crimes of
passion to portrayals of Westerners through Japanese eyes
(think Madama Butterfly ). With their liberal use of garish,
imported red dye, these works could never be mistaken for
the classical style of Ando Hiroshige, say, or Kitagawa Utamaro.
But there are charming prints by Chikanobu Toyohara, who looks
back at Japan's history with a modern eye, and by Kunichika
Toyohara, who captures the stormy moods of actors in the Kabuki
theater.
This reporter has occasionally dipped into
artistic arbitrage during a 20-year career of reporting from
Japan. Among the best places for bargains: shops in Portugal
and Holland, which conducted trade with Japan long before
most other countries, and Chile--where Japanese ships docked
for supplies on their way round the Strait of Magellan before
the construction of the Panama Canal. But there are still
deals to be had in out-of-the-way shops even in large and
expensive Western cities. A vase bought for $50 recently from
a store in lower Manhattan brought $200-plus worth of antiques--a
pre-Meiji teacup and a miniature erotic carving among them--back
in Japan.