KATORI HOTSUMA (1874-1954) A Bronze Model of a Shishi Showa era (1926-1989), circa 1935-1940Property of various ownersKATORI HOTSUMA (1874-1954)A Bronze Model of a Shishi Showa era (1926-1989), circa 1935-1940Cast in bronze as a shishi (Chinese mythical lion), boldy cast in mid-stride with its tail raised, finished in a rich dark brown patina, signed in a chiseled signature on the right side HotsumaWith a wood tomobako storage box inscribed on the lid Shishi okimono (Chinese mythical lion table ornament) and Ishoku (Made to order), signed Hotsuma and with two seals 16in (40.5cm) wide; 10 1/4in (26cm) highImportant both as a scholar and as a practitioner, Katori Hotsuma (sometimes Hozuma) was a key figure in the twentieth-century history of Japanese metalwork. A graduate of Tokyo Art School, where he also taught from 1903 to 1943, he won his first international award at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900 and helped set up several metalwork study groups and art associations; from 1934 he served as a judge at the Teiten annual national exhibitions, where he regularly showed his work (see Kendall H. Brown, Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920-1945, exhibition catalogue, Alexandria, Va., Art Services International, 2012, p. 156).