EDO PERIOD (19TH CENTURY)

Details

A FINE TWO-CASE SLEEVE INRO
EDO PERIOD (19TH CENTURY)
The outer case with a roiro nuri ground decorated in hiramaki-e, takamaki-e with mura-nashiji, kin-fun and three silver stud inlays, the interior nashiji, with an oidzuru and a woven travellers hat on the Narrow Ivy Road from the Tales of Ise, with a poem inscribed on both sides, the inro with a kinji ground depicting stylised waves decorated in gold, red and silver hiramaki-e, the interior of nashiji and the top and base in sparse nashiji over kin-fun
5.6cm. high

Special notice

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Lot Essay

The poem on the inro, is by Fujiwara no Teika and reads:

The person of the law of the universe (a priest)
Finds he has
Lost his way in the mountains

The subject refers to the meeting between the poet Ariwara no Narihira (825-880) and a man at the foot of Mount Utsu in Suruga. Recognising the poet as a courtier he had known earlier in his life, he asked him to remember his old lover and recited the poem:

Beside Mount Utsu in Suruga
I can meet you
Neither in reality
Nor in my dreamsR

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