MOMOYAMA PERIOD (LATE 16TH - EARLY 17TH CENTURY)

Details

A small export coffer
Momoyama Period (Late 16th - early 17th Century)
The black ground decorated in gold and brown hiramaki-e and inlaid in shell with Chinese bellflowers, water plantain, wisteria and other leafy plants, divided into panels by decorative bands of cut shell, the handle, hinges and mounts, hasp and escutcheon in punched and engraved gilt copper, the base and interior in black lacquer, some old damage
22.5cm. long

Special notice

Buyers from within the EU: VAT payable at 17.5% on just the buyer's premium (NOT the hammer price) Buyers from outside the EU: VAT payable at 17.5% on hammer price and buyer's premium. If a buyer, having registered under a non-EU address, decides that an item is not to be exported from the EU, then he/she should advise Christie's to this effect immediately.

Lot Essay

For a similar example see Maria Helena Mendes Pinto Namban Lacquerware in Portugal (Lisbon, 1990), p. 75.

Although commonly referred to as 'Export lacquers' this type of ware was most probably made mostly for the use of the Jesuit priests in the hundreds of churches they established in Japan in the late 16th century.

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