Vintage High Relief Bird and Flower Japanese Tetsubin
July 2014 Auction by Far East Asian Art

This heavy vintage Japanese “ornamental” tetsubin (iron kettle) is strongly cast and decorated in high relief with figures of birds and flowers within deeply recessed irregular panels in a style popularized during the Meiji period. Showa period, mid-20th C. The “front” side is more extensively decorated with a bird perched on one of the blossoming prunus branches, and a somewhat less ornate floral decoration appears in the recessed panel on the reverse side...