Japanese Shinto Dragon Vase

This bronze vase is 17” tall, 12” diameter at its widest point, and weighs just over 15 pounds.

It has a baluster form with a long slender neck flaring to the top opening, on top of a compressed ovoid body on a ring foot. There are also joiner pieces, connecting the neck to the ovoid body, and connecting the ovoid body to the ring foot.

On the actual vase, there are bump-outs on the neck in the form of a silhouette of mountains and three birds. The top of the compressed ovoid body has bump-outs / lobes to form a large chrysanthemum flower circling the base of the vase's neck. 

The dragon is in the style of a Shinto Dragon, intricately detailed with scales, teeth, and surprisingly sharp horns and talons, and an interesting flared or feathered feature at the end of its tail. It appears to only have two attachment points, but it is very firmly attached. It is exquisitely integrated to the form of the vase, both in how it wraps around the vase's form and how the talons appear to grasp and / or rest on parts of the vase body (but actually do not by mere millimeters.)