Japanese bronze crow perched on a tree signed Mitani Meiji period

Japanese bronze crow naturalistically modelled with its wings folded perched on a gnarled tree trunk with pine needles and cones and a cicada crawling up the tree worked with rich brown copper patination.The feather work finely carved and the eyes inlaid in glass with details worked in shakudo and copper, signed in an oval reserve beneath the tail and on the bronze pine trunk Mitani 美谷, Meiji period (1868-1912).

In Japanese mythology crows are thought to be gifted with supernatural powers and are also messengers of the gods.

Size of crow without tree trunk: H 28cm (11.02" in.) x W 8.5cm (3.34" in.)

For bronze works by the same artist see: 'The Golden Age of Japanese Okimono, the Dr. Kanter Collection' by Laura Bordignon, ACC Woodbridge 2010, Metalwork no. 244, 245, 246.

Mitani, Frederick Baekeland 'Imperial Japan, the art of the Meiji Era', Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, New York 1980. Catalogue no. 106.

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