Vintage Pair of Takahashi San Francisco Staffordshire Cat Bookends Figurine Statue Made in Japan. Both were curio displayed and are without any chips or cracks. Original foil label on bottom. Smokey grey spotted cats with grey tipped ears sitting on gold gilt trimmed pillows! They adorn big baby blue eyes!! Very sweet!! I am an extreme wrappers as my feedbacks reflect so they will arrive well packed!

These wonderful elegant vintage Japanese Takahashi of San Francisco porcelain white and gray cat figurines are designed to be used as bookends. From what I have read they feature a hidden compartment in the base with removable plug under the black fabric which can be filled with sand to increase their weight as required. I will not pull back bottom to see as I am afraid of damaging it! Please research that!!! Each beautiful blue eyed piebald pussycat measures approximately 8 inches tall by 4.25 inches wide by 3.25 inches deep. They are designed to look like Victorian Staffordshire pet figurines from the Victorian period with a faux crackle glaze finish and are seated on brown 14K gold accented pillows. Although these bookends are pre owned, they have been very well maintained and appear like new. Takahashi Trading Company imported a wide varity of companion and exotic pet themed bookends during the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's.

Henri Takahashi was born in Tokyo in 1914 and moved to Hawaii with his family at age 3 where his father was minister of the local Congregational Church. He moved to Oakland and then later to Riverside, California when his father was again transferred. Upon his high school graduation in 1931, his family moved back to Japan while Mr. Takahashi chose to remain in the States. Mr. Takahashi worked his way through college with a variety of jobs, supplementing his income with his poker playing skills. He studied sociology and art, graduating in 1936. He moved to San Francisco where he found a job as a sports editor for a Japanese American newspaper.

Tomoye Nozawa, the eldest daughter of a successful Japan Town businessman, was born in San Francisco and graduated from UC Berkeley with two majors, Oriental studies, with an emphasis on ancient Chinese and modern Japanese, and decorative arts. She met her husband, Henri Takahashi, on a double date in 1938 and after a three-year courtship married in 1941. A few months later, following the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, they were forcibly removed from their home to the Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno and then to the Topaz, Utah concentration camp along with many other Japanese Americans from throughout the Bay Area. While interned there Mr. Takahashi helped alleviate the sense of shared dislocation by becoming editor of the Camp newspaper, the Topaz Times. During their time in camp, they dreamed of bringing high-quality, well-designed items from Japan, to introduce the American public to the arts and crafts of a country previously known only for cheaply made imitations of Eurocentric goods. They hoped that putting beautifully designed things into the hands of Americans, they could help to build good feelings amongst a new generation, and diminish the prejudice and racism that had put Japanese Americans behind barbed wire during the war. After being released and allowed to return to the west coast in 1945, Mr. Takahashi and his wife started a small store called Takahashi Trading Co. in San Francisco's Japan Town, at first helping local residents send care packages back to Japan and later importing goods for distribution and sale. They exported medicines, clothing, and other staples to war-torn Japan and soon began importing traditional Japanese items. At its peak, in addition to their home offices on Rhode Island Street, the Takahashi Trading Corporation had stores on Grant Avenue, in Ghiradelli Square, several in Sausalito, as well as one in New York City in addition to selling to retail stores and museum shops throughout the country. Over fifty items won the coveted Good Design Award from the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

In later years, Mr. Takahashi along with his wife Tomoye and sister-in-law Martha Suzuki started the Henri & Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation in 1986 and donated generously to support a variety of local service, cultural and educational institutions. In 2010, after Henri passed away in 2002, Tomoye Takahashi and Martha Suzuki were awarded Japan’s highest award of the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays for their contribution toward strengthening US-Japan relations and their work in the community. The foundation donated funds for the Japanese wing of the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, and continues to sponsor the yearly ringing of the bell on New Year’s Eve plus other programs; the annual Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown; the Japanese American cultural/community centers in San Francisco and Los Angeles; and the establishment of the Stanford Takahashi Lecture Series at the Stanford University School of Oriental Studies.