A RYOSHIBAKO [PAPER-BOX]

EDO PERIOD (17TH CENTURY)

Details

A RYOSHIBAKO [PAPER-BOX]
Edo Period (17th Century)
Of standard form; gold nashiji ground; decoration in gold and silver hiramaki-e and nashiji; interior and base gold hirame with decoration of interior of lid in similar techniques to the exterior; rims of box and lid edged in lead, slight old wear

Exterior with a flock of chidori [wave-birds or dotterels] flying up from a reed-bed by the sea, at the top of the design forming an arc which passes over the face of the moon; edges with stylised plant forms; interior with grasses and bands of cloud beneath a crescent moon
5.5/8 x 13 x 15in.(14.2 x 32.9 x 39.5cm.)

Lot Essay

Chidori are often referred to in classical poetry, as in this anonymous poem from the Kokinwakashu anthology (905 A.D.)1:

Shio no yama Surely dotterels
sashide no iso ni that live on the jutting shore
sumu chidori of Salt Mountain
kimi ga miyo o ba sing 'may your lordship's
yachiyo to zo naku reign be long'

and in several early examples a few characters from the poem are hidden in the design2. Some 13th- and 14th-century tebako feature swirling, rhythmical patterns of as many as 339 individual chidori without any other decoration, but from the 15th century the birds are combined with landscape features3. For an example of a more conservative chidori design on a 17th-century ryoshibako, see 4 below.

1 Saeki Umetomo (ed.), Kokinwakashu [A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern] (Tokyo, 1958), no. 345
2 Kyoto Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan [Kyoto National Museum], Nihon no isho [Classical Japanese Literature as the Theme in Crafts] (Kyoto, 1978), cat. nos. 33-4
3 Kyoto Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan [Kyoto National Museum], Makie, shikkoku to ogon no Nihonbi [The Beauty of Black and Gold Japanese Lacquer] (Kyoto, 1995), cat. nos. 35, 36, 67
4 Kumamoto Kenritsu Bijutsukan [Kumamoto Prefectural Art Museum], Eisei Bunko no shikkogei [Lacquerware in the Eisei Bunko] (Kumamoto, 1983), cat. no. 80

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