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Lot Essay
The spectacular cabinet offered here is ornamented with a design of a famous boating excursion on the Oi River in Saga Arashiyama, the western outskirts of the Heian capital (modern Kyoto). The episode is recounted in Book Two of the late eleventh-century The Great Mirror (Okagami), a historical tale about the regent Fujiwara Michinaga (966-1027) and his times. In the story, there are three boats--the boat for Chinese poetry (kanshi), the music boat, and the boat for Japanese poetry (waka).
The poet Fujiwara Kinto (966-1041), aboard the waka boat, composed the following poem, recorded in the late tenth-century Collection of Gleanings of Japanese Poems (Shuiwakashu), Book 3, no. 210:
Composed upon arriving at the base of Mount Arashi
and finding the crimson leaves scattering wildly
Because it is still early morning
and the winds at Mount Arashi
are so cold,
there is no one
who does not wear brocade.
(Asa madaki arashi no yama no samukereba momiji no kinu hito zo naki)
Arashi is a pun on the word arashi (storm) and the place name ("storm mountain"). The well-known episode is called the "homage to the the three boats" (sansen no homare, or sanshu no sai).
The hills of Arashiyama are spread across the top shelf of the cabinet and the landscape throughout is resplendent with autumn foliage. Arashiyama is a district in the western suburbs of Kyoto, but also the name of the mountain across the Oi River, which forms a backdrop to the district. On the upper doors of the cabinet, a large boat with courtiers playing musical instruments overlaps a second, smaller boat, while a third appears at the lower left. On the lower doors, there is an ox-drawn carriage by the side of the river--one of the vehicles that transported the aristocrats from the city. A young attendant leads the ox toward the river. On the reverse of the lower left door is an image of the poet Fujiwara Kinto seated and holding his writing brush. On the reverse of the lower right door are two poem sheets (shikishi) with the poem he composed for the occasion.
The chest, designed by a painter and signed by three lacquer artists, is a virtuoso example of Meiji craftsmanship and collaboration. Born in Tokyo, Kawanobe Itcho (Genjiro; 1830-1910) became the last master of the Koami school, a family of lacquer artists who had enjoyed high social standing in the service of the shogunate ever since the fifteenth century. The Koami family was the oldest and most prestigious of lacquer families and they prided themselves on fine craftsmanship. Itcho trained under Takei Tosuke.
Itcho was appointed a court artist (Teishitsu gigeiin) in 1896 and around this time he spent ten years making a gold-lacquer chest in traditional daimyo style with a lavish all-over pattern of chrysanthemums for the imperial household. (For his chest in the Imperial Household Collection, see Nakagawa Chizaki, Meiji no kogei [Meiji art craft], Nihon no bijutsu, no. 41, [Shibundo, 1969], pl. 20.) In 1897, he became a professor at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (the present Tokyo University of the Arts), established only a decade earlier with a department of lacquer art. His two sons, Ikko (1852-1926) and Buncho (1861-1909), both excellent lacquerers, worked with him. He was an essentially conservative artisan who worked in the traditional maki-e style.
For examples of his work in the Tokyo National Museum, the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum and the MOA Museum, see Arakawa Hirokazu, Kindai Nihon no shikkogei (Japanese lacquer art of recent times) (Kyoto: Kyoto Shoin, 1985), pls. 42-44.
The second of the lacquer artists, Kawanobe Ikko, is the son of Itcho. The third, Funabashi Iwajiro (Shumin; 1859-after 1914), was a pupil of Uematsu Homin (1846-1899). He won a silver medal at the "Louisiana Purchase Exhibition" in 1904. The last recorded data about the artist is the bronze medal he won at an exhibition in Tokyo in 1914.
According to the trilingual description of the cabinet published at the time of its exhibition in Paris in 1900, the designer (zuanka) of the imagery on the cabinet was Kishi Kokei (1840-1922). As a child, he studied painting under his father, Gansetsu, and it is said that he subsequently became a pupil of Megata Bunson (Kaian; 1813-1880). His artist name (go) is Muso. Kokei's elegant painting style was influenced by Southern-Song work, the Tosa school and Ogata Korin. However, he also created many great designs at the Seiko Company for sculptures showing the influence of Tosa and Rinpa artists, including Ogata Kenzan. Extremely influential in his promotion of the arts and crafts within Japan, he is credited as a pioneer of Meiji design and was the teacher of Kamisaka Sekka (1866-1942) and Shimada Yoshinari (1870-1962). He was appointed a court artist (Teishitsu gigeiin) in 1906. Kokei was laid to rest at Renkoji Temple, Tokyo.
The poet Fujiwara Kinto (966-1041), aboard the waka boat, composed the following poem, recorded in the late tenth-century Collection of Gleanings of Japanese Poems (Shuiwakashu), Book 3, no. 210:
Composed upon arriving at the base of Mount Arashi
and finding the crimson leaves scattering wildly
Because it is still early morning
and the winds at Mount Arashi
are so cold,
there is no one
who does not wear brocade.
(Asa madaki arashi no yama no samukereba momiji no kinu hito zo naki)
Arashi is a pun on the word arashi (storm) and the place name ("storm mountain"). The well-known episode is called the "homage to the the three boats" (sansen no homare, or sanshu no sai).
The hills of Arashiyama are spread across the top shelf of the cabinet and the landscape throughout is resplendent with autumn foliage. Arashiyama is a district in the western suburbs of Kyoto, but also the name of the mountain across the Oi River, which forms a backdrop to the district. On the upper doors of the cabinet, a large boat with courtiers playing musical instruments overlaps a second, smaller boat, while a third appears at the lower left. On the lower doors, there is an ox-drawn carriage by the side of the river--one of the vehicles that transported the aristocrats from the city. A young attendant leads the ox toward the river. On the reverse of the lower left door is an image of the poet Fujiwara Kinto seated and holding his writing brush. On the reverse of the lower right door are two poem sheets (shikishi) with the poem he composed for the occasion.
The chest, designed by a painter and signed by three lacquer artists, is a virtuoso example of Meiji craftsmanship and collaboration. Born in Tokyo, Kawanobe Itcho (Genjiro; 1830-1910) became the last master of the Koami school, a family of lacquer artists who had enjoyed high social standing in the service of the shogunate ever since the fifteenth century. The Koami family was the oldest and most prestigious of lacquer families and they prided themselves on fine craftsmanship. Itcho trained under Takei Tosuke.
Itcho was appointed a court artist (Teishitsu gigeiin) in 1896 and around this time he spent ten years making a gold-lacquer chest in traditional daimyo style with a lavish all-over pattern of chrysanthemums for the imperial household. (For his chest in the Imperial Household Collection, see Nakagawa Chizaki, Meiji no kogei [Meiji art craft], Nihon no bijutsu, no. 41, [Shibundo, 1969], pl. 20.) In 1897, he became a professor at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (the present Tokyo University of the Arts), established only a decade earlier with a department of lacquer art. His two sons, Ikko (1852-1926) and Buncho (1861-1909), both excellent lacquerers, worked with him. He was an essentially conservative artisan who worked in the traditional maki-e style.
For examples of his work in the Tokyo National Museum, the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum and the MOA Museum, see Arakawa Hirokazu, Kindai Nihon no shikkogei (Japanese lacquer art of recent times) (Kyoto: Kyoto Shoin, 1985), pls. 42-44.
The second of the lacquer artists, Kawanobe Ikko, is the son of Itcho. The third, Funabashi Iwajiro (Shumin; 1859-after 1914), was a pupil of Uematsu Homin (1846-1899). He won a silver medal at the "Louisiana Purchase Exhibition" in 1904. The last recorded data about the artist is the bronze medal he won at an exhibition in Tokyo in 1914.
According to the trilingual description of the cabinet published at the time of its exhibition in Paris in 1900, the designer (zuanka) of the imagery on the cabinet was Kishi Kokei (1840-1922). As a child, he studied painting under his father, Gansetsu, and it is said that he subsequently became a pupil of Megata Bunson (Kaian; 1813-1880). His artist name (go) is Muso. Kokei's elegant painting style was influenced by Southern-Song work, the Tosa school and Ogata Korin. However, he also created many great designs at the Seiko Company for sculptures showing the influence of Tosa and Rinpa artists, including Ogata Kenzan. Extremely influential in his promotion of the arts and crafts within Japan, he is credited as a pioneer of Meiji design and was the teacher of Kamisaka Sekka (1866-1942) and Shimada Yoshinari (1870-1962). He was appointed a court artist (Teishitsu gigeiin) in 1906. Kokei was laid to rest at Renkoji Temple, Tokyo.