Shukado News Letter No.4: Appraisal,Shibata Zeshin,Return Policy

Dear Customers and Friends,

Kon-banwa,good evening from Ginza!
This is Chiaki Tanaka, Shukado, Japan.

I am sending you No.4 Shukado Newsletter of Japanese fine-arts.com.

It has been really cold in Tokyo these days and we had first snow of this winter on Thursday this week. It was nice to see the snow falling quietly in Ginza. My two elementary-school-age daughters ware thrilled to see the snow when opening the door and they went out with a scream of joy.
http://japanese-finearts.blogspot.com/2008/01/hatsu-yuki-first-snow-in-2008jan-23th.html

However, snowfall makes adults feel a little bit gloomy because we worry about delay or interruption of train service or getting hurt from slipping on the icy road etc.

In this week newsletter, let me talk a little bit about authentication and appraisal of Japanese fine arts. Everyday, we have clients who ask us to valuate their art pieces at our gallery in Ginza. People who came to know about us on the website or through introduction by their acquaintances bring scrolls or paintings in paper bags or furoshiki to us and they say that those art pieces are handed down from their ancestors or they bought them long time ago.

In fact, there are many art dealers among such visitors. To tell the truth, there are not many art dealers who are well versed with old Japanese fine arts; therefore, some professional people come to ask my father who has long experience and deep knowledge in this field for his opinion.

There are two steps of the artwork appraisal. They are artist identification and valuation. In the first step, we conduct artist identification to judge whether the artwork is a genuine creation of the artist. In the following step, we evaluate its current market value.

For modern or new artworks, we have stricter standard for artist identification. As for some artists, the artworks require certain appraisers who are experts of certain artists. For example, in the western fine art business, there is the only one effective appraiser gallery for each famous artist such as Picasso and Buffet. Like western fine arts, approximately 100 major artists of Japanese fine arts after the Meiji era, there are designated appraisers for each artist.



However, with most of the modern artists, experiences art dealers can identify whether the artwork is genuine or not and they can guess whether it can be authenticated or not.

　

With regard to the old Japanese fine arts, especially the artworks date back to the Edo period or before, there is no designated appraiser so each art dealer has to make their own judgment on their value. Nobody actually witnessed the artists from those times creating their artworks; therefore there is no “perfect” authentication that can be conducted with the modern artworks. With some artists, they created their artworks at their workshop working with their pupils and some of the artworks were actually created by their pupils then the master artists placed their signature and seal on them. Or as for some artists, they produced so many rough artworks that it is difficult to authenticate their works. The perfect truth cannot be found unless we go back to those times when artists created those pieces by a time machine.

　

Although there are a lot of difficulties for authentication of such art pieces, professional art dealers usually required making instant judgment with such matters harnessing their knowledge and experience.

As a matter of fact, quality and value of art pieces can roughly be judged from the boxes that come with scrolls or paintings. Old items usually are stored in the beautiful boxes with certain kind of modest and humble atmosphere (in Japanese called “Wabi”), which has some simple but elegant calligraphy, or they are often wrapped with classy cloth. The same thing can be said for modern paintings. Genuine paintings are carefully stored in the boxed made by the first class Hyogu-ya or picture framers. As for modern Kakejiku scrolls, they usually come with wooden boxes called “tomobako” with “hakogaki” (artist’s signature, seal and hand-written title of the artwork).

Although professionals can judge whether the artwork is genuine or not and its value based on such information, sometimes we make mistakes in valuation depending solely on it so we check the artwork.

With scrolls, sometimes I can judge its value from feeling its weight in my hand. If the scroll is too light, there is a high possibility to find it poorly created. Then I spread the scroll to check Hyogu or mounting. There are infinite varieties of fabric used for mounting but quality fabric can be identified on the spot. If quality fabric is used for the mounting, you can expect that the painting itself is valuable.

In order to judge whether the artwork is genuine or not, abundant knowledge concerning the artist’s painting style and his/her painting skills and techniques, but, in general, we can judge from the viewpoints whether drawings and colors are natural or not or we can see the elegant and dignified atmosphere. I often see the fake artworks that are intentionally created to look old. We can usually sense some sort of atmosphere from genuine art pieces. In addition, I check rakkan or artist’s signature and seal. As you may know, though it seems easy to copy someone’s writing, it is difficult to make a perfect copy of it. As for seals, it is possible to make a copy so we can not make judgment solely based on the seal for 100 % sure. However, the seal applied on the artwork can be a key element for judgment. Regarding some artists, we can identify the artwork based on the seal. Seals of Maruyama O-kyo and Ito Jakuchu have distinctive characteristics.

The most difficult genre of Japanese fine arts for appraisal is “Nanga”. “Nanga” is often used synonymously with “Bunjinga” to describe the painting tradition inspired by Chinese literati painting that flourished in Japan during the 18c and 19c. Scholars who were not professional painters created Nanga paintings. Since high skills that can be guessed from their intentional amateurism, elegant atmosphere and the beauty of imperfection are highly valued with Nanga paintings, there are so many fake works which copy their intentional poor painting styles. Ikeno Taiga and Buson are representative Nanga artists and many of their artworks were copied. There is a difficulty to determine whether such paintings are genuine or not. Of course, there are some artworks, which are valued highly while there are some works valued worthless but it is sometimes difficult to give valuation with some pieces for sure. Although art dealers should be able to value price of the work, there are some ambiguities for evaluating Nanga paintings. Also the other elements such as how it was made, the condition of the store box and its rarity value can effect its appraisal.

With older art works, the atmosphere and beauty of itself rather than artist’s name are important. It is not rare to find old artworks with no artist’s signature and seal. It may sounds ambiguous but art dealers have some sort of rules in their valuation so it is not so ambiguous as you may think.


Well, I think that I have written too long. I feel that some of the important things regarding this topic may be missing though….

By the way, there is an important announcement. We revised our Return Policy. In our old policy, like that of Ichiro-ya, it was written that we do not accept any return unless there is a serious defect or mistake. In Japan, people do not usually return their purchase. When we heard that it is very common in the U.S. to return purchased items, we worried about unexpected numbers of returns and huge shipping cost for accepting returning items; therefore we decided not to accept returns without certain reasons.

However, with regard to art pieces, we came to think that customers might be deterred to purchase items on line due to the risks of being rejected to return their purchase although the received purchase looks very different from what they thought when they ordered it. From my personal experience, it is rare to find claimers who make unreasonable complaints among fine arts lovers. Then we came to a conclusion to receive returns for whatever reason. Please check our website for more details:
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/index.php#return



I would like to end my newsletter referring to this week’s recommended item, an excellent scroll titled “Tigers” by Shibata Zeshin.
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/107006640/

Drawing technique, composition and facial expressions of Mother and baby tigers are beyond my description. Elaborate painting touch with Tigers’ fur is exquisite. I would like Mr. Joe Price who is a famous collector of Jakuchu’s artworks to see this art piece.

Shibata Zeshin is a lacquer-painting artist. He is well known for his excellent skills with “makie”, a technique which originated in the Heian period for lacquer ware decoration in which designs are made by scattering adhesive metal or color powder in soft lacquer or directly on wood. He was very good at drawings and deformation of the painting objects. Along with Kawanabe Kyosai, he was one of the persons of exceptional talents between the Edo and the Meiji period when Japan went under the drastic cultural and economic changes. To be honest with you, this item is a really good buy! If this piece were to be listed on the Christies auction, it would be valued for much higher price. I strongly recommend this item to you with confidence.



Well, that is all for this week’s newsletter. Global downturn in stock price seems to hit the bottom. I hope that the global economy will recover soon and see the strong growth in this year’s market.

See you next week!

Mt. FUJI from ROPPONGI HILLS

I could see the mount FUJI from a window of Roppongi Hills Tower this morning. I have visited the office of the tower once a week past a year, but it was the first experience. Perhaps the air was so clean,actually best in past 12 months, this morning.
Good winter day.

Hatsu-yuki, The FIRST Snow in 2008,Jan 23th

The view in my hometown.

We got some snow this morning. Our two daughters, 2nd and 4th graders of elementary school, found the snow was falling and said in a loud voice, "Look at, look at! It’s snowing ! ",and flied out from the door to go to their school.

Since it was rather warm last winter in Tokyo, this winter is extremely cold for us who got used to the warm winter. We had very hot and long summer last year and we did not need coats in autumn. Actually we didn’t have the season of fall last year ,and real cold winter suddenly came in last December.

Winter is cold. This is no wonder with that fact. But these years we have not experienced the truly cold winter perhaps because of global warming.
I have not adjusted myself this cold winter, so I have bad coughs lately…

Snowing on the Dentsu-dori Street of Ginza from our gallery

Shukado News Letter No.3

Dear customers & friends

Good morning, this is Tanaka Chiaki of Shukado, Ginza.
It's Shukado News Letter No.3.

These days,it is freezing cold here in Tokyo!

I recently went for golf with my senior of the art dealer. I started playing golf just a year ago, and I am a very beginner of it. Last time, I was criticized for my bad manner of playing golf, so I decided to go with my senior (he told me that he would teach me good manner,).

We went through, surprisingly, one and half round (27 holes)…it was really cold to stay outside. We were playing golf as if we were in a ski resort. We said by ourselves that here is not a golf course, but a ski resort in order to divert ourselves from coldness.

By the way, is golf famous sport in your country? For Japanese business people, golf is very popular and all mountains seem to be golf courses.
For example,I heard that the owner of Yahoo! Japan (and CEO of SOFTBANK corp.), Mr. Son , has his own super private golf practice machine at his home ,usually checks his swing with the machine ,and he now has acquired professional golf skill. I am wondering his friend, Bill Gates, also plays golf.

As for me, the golf score of that day was really bad as usual. You may figure out my score with the fact that I hit as twice much as my senior did and a lot of golf balls went missing in the ponds and among the trees.

It has already been one and a half months since our “Japanese Fine Arts.com” established. Thankfully, we receive orders from all over the world such as the east and the west coasts of America, Germany, the Czech Republic, Netherlands and Japan.

We did not have many hits on our website from overseas when our website was available only in Japanese. Through our new English site, I am surprised to see that many people all over the world including not only North American and EU countries ,but also Russian,North Europe and Asian people are viewing our site.

Last week, through not by way of our English site, a customer from Asian country came to visit our gallery, Ginza. He bought Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock print and framed Japanese-style painting from us before.

It is surprising to me that there is such an Asian customer who is really interested in Japanese arts. I thought many Asian people evaluate Japanese arts lower than their own arts, so I did not imagine there are some people who are very interested in Japanese culture.

Originally, Japan, China, and Korea share the same Kanji(Chinese character) culture and big influence one another and the much Japanese culture came from China and Korea, in fact. However, the Meiji-ishin (Meiji Restoration : a chain of events that led to enormous changes in Japan's political and social structure) let Japan go ahead for modern and this caused the gap and cultural conflicts between Japan and other Asian countries. In Japan, we have a proverb “ Kawaisa amatte Nikusa Hyakubai” meaning "The greatest hate springs from the greatest love". As the proverb, even now we East Asian countries have big problems which caused by the things we cannot share some matters though we have the same base.

However, when I take a look at the history of the last four hundred years history of Europe and America, they had many bloody complicated conflicts but, it seems like they became to live at peace dealing with the politics and national sentiment. So I have a little hope we Asian people will respect each other someday about several hundreds years later.

Like the customer who visited us all the way and did not have prejudice against other countries’ culture, individuals who admit both cultures may create such atmosphere, I believe.

Finally, I would like to introduce you a recommended item of this week : Kujaku (peacock) of Kishi Renzan.

http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/107007070/

Kishi School was specialized in flowes and birds (kacho-ga) paintings. Renzan was flourished in the last days of Tokugawa Shogunate. Detailed and spirited description of feather, sharp eyes, and firmly staying his feet were tactfully depicted in perfection by Renzan. In addition, rocks and pine trees are drawn exquisitely. Please enjoy this valuable vintage, scroll painting.

Well, I hope you are spending wonderful weekend and please take care not catching a cold.

See you next week!

Yours, sincerely
Chiaki Tanaka


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Kobori Enshu

Today I went to the exibition of Kobori Enshu.
Kobori Enshu is a very great chajin(master of ceremonial tea) who is the master of tear ceremony of Tokugawa Shogunate in early Edo period.

However,there were huge number of people visiting the exbition, so I was compelled to see the art works over the heads of crowds. It is great news for the Japanese art and antique field ,but it was difficult to appreciate them closely.

I bought the thick catalog , so I will try to appreciate them again on the paper...

Shukado News Letter No.2 : Family2,Genji

Dear customers and friends,

This is Shukado Newsletter No.2 (we changed the title from Japanese-finearts.com Newsletter)

Ohayo Gozaimasu,Good morning from Ginza,Tokyo

This is the first newsletter for you in year 2008, let me say "a Happy New Year" to you and I hope that 2008 will be a very happy and prosperous year for all of you.

Let me talk about continuation of our family business history of the first newsletter.

Although my father was brought up in the house where Kakejiku scrolls and antique books were scattered around everywhere, he did not succeed his family business immediately when he became a grown-up. As far as I know, he was helping his father’s business since his childhood, but he was not thinking about making it as his lifetime job.

When my father was a university student at Kyoto University, he belonged to the rugby club there. He ran very fast and was a very good rugby player. He is still proud of his fast running. At the time of his graduation, all graduates faced a hiring slump and it was so difficult to find a job. However, the rugby club had a good tradition that graduates help new graduates to find jobs and my father got a job at a sugar refining company with such help. He was assigned to the Kyushu office and spent many relaxing times there. In his late twenties, he was called back to Kyoto by his elder bother to help their family business and made a full-fledged start in his career as an antique fine arts dealer.

I also did not start my career as an art dealer straight after graduation from University. I wanted to be a filmmaker at that time. Unfortunately, the Japanese film industry was facing a very difficult time and my dream did not come true. Then I wanted to do something where I can contribute to society and joined in the farmer collective after my graduation from university. In my 30’s, I became engaged in the business related to computers which I had been enjoying as a hobby since my childhood. Finally, 4 or 5 years ago, I decided to succeed my father’s business.

In these years, I have seen tens of thousands of antique Japanese fine arts and various art pieces and I have also been engaged in purchasing and selling wide-ranged art pieces. Although I believe that I have acquired a certain level of knowledge about Japanese fine arts, I am still in the learning process as a professional art dealer. I am striving to do my best to do my job with some help from my father and other experts of various associations and groups in this field. I am also very happy to receive comments and queries from anyone concerned.

About a half month has passed since the opening of our website in November and we have added some items to our online shopping line-ups for each category.

I will make my best effort to introduce more excellent items from wider ranged genre to you on our website so that you can feel Japanese fine arts closer, so please keep checking it!

Shukado’s recommended item of this week is :
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/107006610/

This set of byobu screens is used by someone in the Edo period. The scenes of the Tales of Genji are depicted on this pair of screens.

The Tales of Genji is often mentioned as the oldest long novel in the world history. This story was written by Murasaki Shikibu who was a court lady in the Heian Period. It is concerned with the life and loves of Prince Genji and the affairs of his children and grandchildren. It is written in a prose style, with a vocabulary of more than 12,000 words (more than one million letters in Japanese alphabet), with nearly 800 embedded poems.

The Tales of Genji has been giving enormous impacts on Japanese culture and the story is published in modern language and still read by many people.

This year is the 1000th year since Mirasaki Shikibu wrote this story and many conferences where academics gather from all over the world will be held.

Being such a popular story, the Tales of Genji is often depicted in daily furnishings and decoration items and this artwork is one of those furnishings created in the Edo period.

.....

As always, we appreciate your continuing support for our activities, and wish you a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2008!

Chiaki Tanaka
Shukado Co., Ltd.

Online Gallery
"Japanese-FineArts.com by Shukado"
http://www.japanese-finearts.com

e-mail: info@japanese-finearts.com
address: 7F Sone bld. ,6-4-8 Ginza
Chuo-ku,Tokyo 104-0061 JAPAN

TEL ****( international number )+81-3-3569-3620
FAX ****( international number )+81-3-3569-3621

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