SIGNED KAKOSAI SHOZAN, EDO PERIOD (19TH CENTURY)

Details

A SUPERB FIVE-CASE INRO
Signed Kakosai Shozan, Edo Period (19th Century)
Black lacquer ground; decoration in gold, aokin and silver hiramaki-e and takamaki-e, gold foil and applied shakudo, copper and silver; compartments and risers gold Gyobu nashiji; shoulders and rims gold lacquer; signed in gold hiramaki-e on the base Kakosai Shozan with a red lacquer seal; stone ojime. On one side Raiko (Minamoto no Yoritomo, 944/8-1021) sleeping on a veranda with a stream and maples in the background; on the reverse Shoka, daughter of Yoyuki, carrying a bow and arrows and floating down to Yoritomo on a cloud in a dream.
4in. (10.1cm.) high

Special notice

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Lot Essay

In a legend reminiscent of Siegmund's seizure of the sword from Hunding's hut in Act 1 of Die Walküre, Shoka had been charged by her father, a celebrated Chinese archer, with the task of entrusting the weapons to whoever was most worthy of them.1 Kakosai or Kakyosai Shozan is a well-known early 19th-century lacquerer whose inro are frequently embellished, as here, with metal details.2

1 V-F. Weber, Koji Hoten, Dictionnaire à l'Usage des Amateurs et Collectionneurs d'Objets d'Art Japonais et Chinois (Paris, 1923), pp. 191-2.
2 E.A. Wrangham, The Index of Inro Artists (Harehope, 1995), p. 258.

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