Goto Ichijo and Iron Works

[Vermithrax16]

I think maybe I did know this at some point.......but came across again last night.

Iron was banned as a material for Goto fittings. Alas, the great Ichijo used an alternate name for his iron works. I would wonder, would anyone really have made a fuss? He's the master.

[SteveM]

Nobody seems to be taking the bait, so I'll toss in my opinion. My guess is that the house of Gotō represented the finest metalworkers of the day, and so perhaps analogous to Hermes or Jaeger-LeCoultre or Romanee Conti or some other ultra high-end brand.

 

So just as Hermes doesn't indulge in "fast fashion", and Jaeger-LeCoultre doesn't dabble in LCD quartz watches, the Gotō prided themselves in high-end soft metalwork, and didn't indulge in common iron-work. Maybe they thought it was something left to the garden variety ironworkers. Plus, as they dominated the minting of currency, their access to precious metals gave them a huge advantage in decorative metals, whereas iron was far more easily obtainable, and therefore a bit difficult to stand out among the crowd of ironworkers. 

 

I'm sure there would have been an appreciative market for their iron work, had they gone in that direction, but the house name and the tradition have a value that they didn't dare play with. Of course some brands do offer "second label" stuff - which can be successful and can also be unsuccessful. But if you are purveyor to the daimyo, and protected by the shogunate, you probably don't need to explore new markets. 

[Fred Geyer]

 

 

 

Steve,

 

Ichijo was the absolute master of his day, well maybe ever in iron or soft metal did not matter. Most people have only seen his students work which is still very good work but when he made it nothing but perfection, he was just following the rules in respect signing the way he did when he worked in iron. 

 

Fred Geyer