Kawade Shibatarō

Kawade Shibatarō (, 1856–1921) was a Japanese artist working in (cloisonné enamel). As head of the Ando Cloisonné Company, he introduced a number of technical innovations, expanding the colours that could be rendered in enamel and bringing the company to a new level of success. Under his leadership, the company exhibited at world's fairs, winning multiple awards.

Along with Hattori Tadasaburō, Kawade developed the ( "piling up") technique which places layers of enamel upon each other to create a three-dimensional effect, often used in depicting flowers or blossoms. Kawade analysed this piece to replicate and then further develop the technique. Kawade exhibited works at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, at Japan's fifth National Industrial Exposition in 1903, at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904, at the Universal and International Exposition in Liège in 1905, and at the Japan-British Exhibition of 1910 in London. He won a gold medal at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition of 1915 in San Francisco.

The Ando Cloisonné Company was chosen as a supplier of art for the Imperial family and as such was commissioned to make works, bearing the Imperial chrysanthemum seal, that the family could present as gifts. One such work, executed by Kawade in 1906, was a pair of vases presented by the Emperor to the American cartoonist Henry Mayer, thanking him for cartoons on the Russo-Japanese War published in The New York Times.

Outside of Japan his works are in collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Khalili Collection of Japanese Art of the Meiji Era.

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