Commentary by Curator

"This miniature lighthouse was donated and produced to celebrate Yukichi Fukuzawa's 60th birthday. The sculptor Ujihiro Okuma, a leading person of Western-style sculpture in the Meiji era, made the mold for this work. Its casting was done by Chokichi Suzuki, the metalworker who inherited metal casting techniques from the Edo period. This work’s significance lies in its unique expression of the Meiji era, where Western techniques were comined with traditional Japanese ones. The body of the lighthouse has a five-layered pattern made from two different types of alloy. The rough waters in the lower part are silver, crashing against elaborate rocks of copper. These indicate Okuma's mastery of dynamic expression and Suzuki's exquisite craftsmanship. Although the work had remained damaged for a long time, its restoration started to prepare for the exhibition ""Fukuzawa Yukichi: Living the Future"" (2009, Tokyo National Museum and others). Each process was carefully followed through with the help of its blueprint and photographic documentation (printed materials from the Meiji era) attached to the work. With exhibition in mind, the basic policy of the conservation was to reconstruct the appearance of the missing and deformed metal parts without seeking to match the original materials. The parts were reconstructed with reference to accompanying documents, using materials easy to obtain and work with such as brass and polyester resin. Its mechanical parts were unrepaired, their colors left in the state of metal oxidation due to aging."