Japanese Wooden Kanban Shop Sign Take, 1890s

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Description

Characterful tall wooden kanban shop sign from Japan, originally used by a merchant dealing in bamboo products.

Dimensions: height 166 … Read more Characterful tall wooden kanban shop sign from Japan, originally used by a merchant dealing in bamboo products.

Dimensions: height 166 cm, width 32 cm, depth 2.5 cm.

The sign is carved from solid wood with a deep vertical grain and still has its two original iron hanging brackets at the top – ready to be mounted on the wall again.

An oval trademark with both Japanese kanji and Latin letters is carved into the wood. At the top you can read 登録商標 (tōroku shōhyō – “registered trademark”), inside the circle the word TAKE and in the centre the character 竹 (take – bamboo). Further down the board run large decorative kanji with the brand name and product , flanked by narrower columns of text including 日本製 (“made in Japan”) and the name of the company or owner. Because of the strong weathering not every detail is still readable, but the calligraphic structure is beautifully visible in raking light.

The wood has a pronounced wabi-sabi patina: weathered silver-grey to dark brown tones, cracks, a rougher edge at the bottom and subtle colour variations show that this sign hung outside for many years. That very ageing now makes it a powerful sculptural object. As a narrow vertical totem against a wall or in a hallway it becomes a strong graphic accent in a Japanese, industrial or minimalist interior.

An authentic piece of Japanese commercial history that now shines mainly as a purely decorative wabi-sabi interior statement. See less