Huang Goodman · Art Forgotten

Art Forgotten

Art from public museum collections. A mismatched real Japanese law, and some other factoids.

Every object, image and description comes from the museum's own catalogue record, and every object links to its original. Japanese records are machine-translated into English; the museum's Japanese is kept beside the translation because it is the authoritative form. Each law carries its official number and links to e-Gov 法令検索, the Japanese government's statute database.

Chrysanthemum-Shaped Dish
{Chrysanthemum-Shaped Dish · Seifū Yohei IV (Japanese, 1872–1951) · 1914–46 · Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0}

Like his father, Yohei IV also produced works with red or yellow monochrome glazes. His yellow-glazed works include this sweets bowl molded into the shape of a chrysanthemum, a set of five drinking cups CMA 2022.217, and a pair of sake pourers CMA 2022.216.

View the original at Cleveland Museum of Art →
The law
古物営業法
Antique Dealings Act
昭和二十四年法律第百八号 · Act No. 108 of 1949

Article 1 states the purpose plainly: prevent trade in stolen goods, find them quickly, and speed the recovery of victims. Article 2 then defines a used article to include, in the same breath, art objects held for appreciation. Dealing in them requires a licence.

The cool part. Article 16 requires a dealer to record every transaction: the date, the item and quantity, its distinguishing features, and the address, name, occupation and age of the other party. Article 15 requires that a dealer who suspects an item is stolen report it to a police officer immediately. So the antique trade runs on a register the police may read, and a painting becomes a second-hand article the moment it has been used once.

Verify at e-Gov 法令検索 →

Use it A motif small enough to blind-deboss, which is where restraint actually shows.

Description source: museum curator text — not generated