THE STORAGE BOX SIGNED HYOKAN; MEIJI/TAISHO PERIOD (EARLY 20TH CENTURY)

For another inscribed lacquer storage-box by another member of this line of Kyoto lacqerers, also called Hyokan but with different characters, see Honolulu Academy of Arts, Shadows and Reflections: Japanese Lacquer Art from the Collection of Edmund J. Lewis (Hong Kong, 1996), cat. no. 15, and for a similar example by Shibata Zeshin, supposedly imitating the metal plates used by European sailors, see E.A. Wrangham, 'Zeshin and the Art of Metal Imitation', Netsuke Kenkyukai Study Journal, 12/1 (Spring 1992), pp. 31-6, fig. 16.