Lot Essay
The unusual composition and the experimental technique of the interior suggest that this fine box was probably made towards the end of the Meiji period when members of the Iizuka Toyosai line, which used the art-name Kanshosai, are known to have been still working2.
1 Makino Tomitaro, Makino shin Nihon shokubutsu zukan [Makino's New Illustrated Flora of Japan] (Tokyo, 1961), no. 664
2 Takao Yo, Kinsei makie-shi meikan [A List of Edo- and Meiji-period Maki-e Artists], Rokusho 17-20 (1996), 17, p. 106