A pair of bronze incense burners formed as sumo wrestlers Meiji era (1868-1912), late 19th century Cast in two shades of bronze, carved on the surface and finished with gilt highlights, each wrestler shown bare-chested with his kimono thrown off one shoulder and holding aloft a cylindrical covered censer, one wrestler wearing a kesho mawashi (ceremonial apron) decorated with a kirin on rolling clouds, his robes adorned with cart wheels and paulownia flowers, the other in a mawashi (loincloth) fitted with sagari (silk fronds) dangling from the front, and a kimono decorated in wave roundels and peonies, holding in his right hand an oversized tobacco pouch fitted with a pipe and a netsuke, the censers carved with scrolling floral vines on an ishime ground supported by three shishi, the domed covers finished with a seated shishi finial, each signed in a gilt rectangular cartouche Miyao tsukuru, set on rectangular wood stands decorated with scrolling vines in gold hiramaki-e 23in (58.4cm) high overall