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Lot Essay
The certificate accompanying the present tray was written by Tsuishu Tozei Choshi (d. 1719) in the second year, fourth month of the Hoei reign (1705). Choshi is the tenth generation of the Tsuishu Yozei family, who served as a lacquer specialist to the Tokugawa shogunate. It is interesting to note that the family name, Tsuishu Yozei, was named after two legendary Chinese Yuan dynasty lacquer carvers, Yang Mao and Zhang Cheng, while Tsuishu literally means ‘carved red lacquer’.
A mother-of-pearl-inlaid black lacquer rectangular tray decorated with a related scene of water birds in a river landscape and similar borders of shaped panels and patterns, dated to the 15th-16th century, in the Yamato Bunkakan, Nara, is illustrated in the catalogue Exhibition of Chinese Inlaid Mother-of-Pearl Lacquer Art, Tokyo National Museum, 1979, no. 41. Compare, also, a circular box and cover with similar decoration, illustrated ibid, no. 57.
A mother-of-pearl-inlaid black lacquer rectangular tray decorated with a related scene of water birds in a river landscape and similar borders of shaped panels and patterns, dated to the 15th-16th century, in the Yamato Bunkakan, Nara, is illustrated in the catalogue Exhibition of Chinese Inlaid Mother-of-Pearl Lacquer Art, Tokyo National Museum, 1979, no. 41. Compare, also, a circular box and cover with similar decoration, illustrated ibid, no. 57.