Japan, a beautiful heavy and hand cast antique Taisho period 23 inch tall “pagoda house” garden lantern with an appealing natural rustic patina. Its firebox boasts nine (9) window openings on each of six panels allowing night light to burst though in all directions (see photo).

Just look at the fine casting and cut outs of its six attractively sculpted and tapered legs. This is a handsome and hard to find style- a notably beautiful and functional example.

Dimensions: 23 inches tall to top of loop and 10.5 inches diameter, two pieces.

Hand cast, fine detail, perfect indoor display or for your special out of doors garden space. The swinging door (often missing) is fully functional and allows you to place an LED or candle.

Provenance: Acquired from an old Japanese Kyoto garden

Lifetime guarantee of authenticity: All of our Asian works of art come with our Lifetime Authenticity Guarantee.

Our gallery based in Newport, Rhode Island USA has been dealing in authentic Pre-Columbian, Japanese and fine Asian art, garden ornaments, lanterns and water basins for 25 years. Our president personally travels across America as well as Japan and Europe each year to meet his network partners who assist him in finding best examples. He personally inspects each antique work of art to ensure its old age, authenticity and quality condition.

History of Japanese lanterns:

In Japan a to¯ro¯ (lantern) is a traditional lantern made of stone, wood or metal. Like many other elements of Japanese traditional architecture, it originated in China. In Japan, to¯ro¯ were originally used only in Buddhist temples, where they lined and illuminated paths and lighted lanterns were then considered an offering. In its complete, original form the lantern represents five elements of Buddhist cosmology: Bottom touching the ground, represents chi, the earth, the next section represents sui or water, ka or fire, is represented by the section encasing the lantern’s light or flame, while fu¯ (air) and ku¯ (void or spirit) are represented by the last two sections, top-most and pointing towards the sky. These last two sections express the idea that after death our physical bodies will go back to their original, elemental form.