A FUBAKO [DOCUMENT BOX]
A FUBAKO [DOCUMENT BOX]

SIGNED KANSHOSAI (EDO), MEIJI PERIOD (LATE 19TH/EARLY 20TH CENTURY)

Details
A FUBAKO [DOCUMENT BOX]
Signed Kanshosai (Edo), Meiji Period (Late 19th/Early 20th Century)
With flush-fitting lid and rounded corners; black lacquer ground; decoration in gold, silver and red togidashi-e and low takamaki-e, embellished with gold hirame and nashiji; interior with gold e-nashiji; rims gold lacquer; underside gold hirame; silver fittings; signed in gold hiramaki-e at one end Kanshosai with a kao

Exterior with vertically-oriented design probably of enkoso ['monkey-grass', Caltha Sibirica1] beneath clouds of nashiji; interior with an unusual design of long-petalled flowers or dragonflies in e-nashiji; openwork silver fittings in the form of grasses
2.1/8 x 3 x 10.1/8in. (5.5 x 8.3 x 25.7cm.)
Provenance
Jan Dees Collection

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

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