Hayakawa Shōkosai III (1864-1922)

Tall, oval shaped bamboo flower basket for large flower arrangements. Resting on a chrysanthemum-plated base, the vessel's wall were plaited in mat-style with a perfectly even egg-shaped form, finished with a  combination of a thinly split regular stripe of bamboo and open-work pattern and a mouth made of a ring of intertwined natural bamboo stems. Also the handle is made of three separately fixed and then intertwined natural bamboo stems.

Using a classic Chinese model of bamboo basketry though, Hayakawa Shōkosai III added some significant, more informal Japanese details by using natural bamboo. The Hayakawa family is regarded as the founding fathers of modern bamboo art in Japan, since Hayakawa Shōkosai I (1815-1897) is said to be the first one who started to sign his works in 1856. His fifth son, Shōkosai III, followed the footsteps of succeeding the family business due to the premature death of his elder brother, Shōkosai II, in 1905. Specialists agree, that he played possibly the most important role in "broadening the expressive  capabilities of bamboo, and departed much further than his father from Chinese models." (Earle 2018, 17) With his flexible organic style he exerted an immense influence on later bamboo art.

Signed underneath: Sansei Shōkosai tsukuru (Made by Shōkosai III) and dated inside the lid of the box: Mizunoene shūshin (Autumn 1912).

Reference: Joe Earle: Baskets. Masterpieces of Japanese Bamboo Art 1850-2015, John Adamson Dist A/C (2018).

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