A GOLD LACQUERED WRITING-BOX

EARLY EDO PERIOD (17TH CENTURY)

Details

A GOLD LACQUERED WRITING-BOX
Early Edo Period (17th Century)
Decorated in gold and silver lacquer, silver foil and lead inlay on a nashiji ground, with a courtier's carriage beneath a full moon emerging from behind clouds, the interior similarly decorated, the inside of the cover with flowering plum and a screen, the box with two trays, one holding the inkstone and water-dropper, the latter in relief with a peony, the other with shoots of pine, some old wear, with wood box
1 x 9.1/8 x 8in. (4.5 x 22.5 x 21cm.)

Lot Essay

Some recently published lacquers with large scale classical motifs and bold use of lead inlay for some of the major elements of the design have been given late sixteenth-century rather than seventeenth-century dates, and this may be another example. See Kyoto Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan [Kyoto National Museum], Makie, shikkoku to ogon no Nihonbi [The beauty of black and gold Japanese lacquer] (Kyoto, 1995), cat no. 178, a set of boxes with a design of waterwheels on the Yodo river.

More from Japanese Art & Design

View All