焔Maison HomuraShop
2435
四 · Metal — Takaoka, Toyama

Takaoka bronze

The gold wears thin at the crown and the knuckles. That is where hands go.

4 pieces on the shelf ↓
Takaoka bronze — Takaoka, Toyama
Takaoka, Toyama · Poured since 1609

In 1609 the second lord of Kaga decided his new castle town ought to make something. He brought seven casters to Takaoka and gave them land to settle on. Four hundred years later the town is still pouring metal, and most Japanese art bronze of the last century came out of those workshops.

The work has been divided for as long as anyone can remember. A sculptor builds the figure in clay — the genkei, the model — and then hands it over. More often than not he never touches the metal at all. The foundry takes it from there: the mould, the pour, the breaking open, and then weeks of filing and chasing every fold of a sleeve by hand.

Takaoka bronze — from the left
From the left
On the shelf now
See the whole Takaoka bronze shelf · 4 pieces →
If you would like one

Not quite the one?

These are the pieces we have in Fukuoka today. After something else? Tell us here.

See all 4 on the shelf →
5.0 · Star Seller on Etsy ↗
How it works
  1. Write to the house. A person in Fukuoka replies, usually within a day or two.
  2. When a piece is agreed, the house sends you a private payment link, and you pay by card.
  3. It ships from Japan.

Find one like this

Pick a budget and who it is for — that is enough. We write back with photographs, condition and a price.

Budget
For
Takaoka bronze — at the workshop
At the workshop
How it is made
  1. 原型Genkei

    A sculptor makes the model. He may never touch metal at all.

  2. 鋳型Igata

    The foundry takes a sand or lost-wax mould from that model.

  3. 鋳込みIkomi

    Bronze is poured. What comes out is rough, grey and unremarkable.

  4. 仕上げShiage

    Seams filed away, detail cut back in by hand with chisels.

  5. 着色Chakushoku

    A separate trade heats and treats the metal for its colour. Two identical castings finished by two colourists are two different objects.

So when a bronze carries a famous name, the name usually belongs to the model rather than to the object you are holding. That is not a flaw in the arrangement. It is the arrangement. It is also why a piece by a well-known hand can be entirely genuine and cost a few hundred dollars instead of a few hundred thousand.

Then it is gilded, and then it is left alone for fifty years. Gold goes from the high points first — the crown, the knuckles, the ridge of a sleeve. What you end up with is a map of where hands and cloth and dust have been. The rubbed places are the places people reached for.

We say what we can see, and what the box says. Nothing past that.

Takaoka bronze — from the right
From the right
Walk around it
Takaoka bronze — FrontTakaoka bronze — LeftTakaoka bronze — BackTakaoka bronze — Right
Notes
The town
Takaoka, Toyama — since 1609
The surface
Bronze, gilded, then aged
Genkei
The sculptor's model, cast by a foundry
What we claim
Only what the object and its box say
About the place

In 1609 Maeda Toshinaga built a castle at Takaoka and settled seven casting families in a quarter beside it, the district still called Kanayamachi — the metal-workers' town. (Where exactly the seven came from is given differently in different accounts.) The castle was abandoned within six years. The foundry quarter was not, and it is still there.

Takaoka · Bronze casting →Ask us to find one →The Middle and the Snow Coast · By region →

Your bag