A cloisonné enamel box and cover | Attributed to Gonda Hirosuke (1865-1937) | Meiji period, late 19th century

Gonda Hirosuke (d. 1937) was adopted into the Gonda family in 1887 and was taught by Hayashi Kodenji, eventually opening his own enamelling business in 1891. He won prizes at international exhibitions in Paris 1889 (bronze), St Luis 1904 (silver) and Liège 1905 (gold). He was extremely talented and worked as s sub-contractor to Ando producing cloisonné enamels in many varied techniques.

Moriage (lit. ‘piling-up’) is a painstaking technique, which requires extreme care, especially at the polishing stage; it involves the building up layers of enamel to produce a three-dimensional effect. It was ideally suited to natural subjects such as plants and flowers but was used for the depiction of other subject matter as well and works particularly well for depicting fish swimming through ripples of water.