SEALED HOMIN, MEIJI PERIOD (LATE 19TH CENTURY)

The Tatsuta River, famous for russet autumn foliage, is celebrated in a poem by the courtier-poet Ariwara no Narihira:

Chihayaburu Tatsuta River -
kamiyo mo kikazu even when gods walked the earth
Tatsutagawa never have I heard
karakurenai ni your waters were as crimson
mizu kukuru to wa1 as if soaked in Chinese dye.

The design on the tray illustrates the Tsuta no hosomichi [Narrow Ivy Road] episode of Ise monogatari, in which Narihira, banished from the court in Kyoto, happens upon a narrow pass through Mount Utsu which is overgrown with ivy. The difficult passage brings to mind his uncertain fate and results in a poem, an encounter with an acquaintance and a letter to his beloved.2 The same conjunction of the Tatsuta River and Narrow Ivy Path themes is seen on a seventeenth-century set of writing-box and writing-table by Tatsuke Chobei (Hirotada) in Tokyo National Museum.3

Regarded as a perpetuator of the Edo-period (1615-1912) maki-e tradition rather than as an innovator, Uematsu Homin became an independent artist at the age of twenty-five and from 1878 was attached to the Seikosha company, one of many such firms set up early in the Meiji period (1868-1912) to manufacture crafts for export.4

1 Saeki Umetomo (ed.), Kokinwakashu [A collection of poems ancient and modern] (Tokyo, 1958), no. 294.
2 Harris, H. Jay (trans. and ed.), The Tales of Ise (Rutland, Vt., and Tokyo, 1972), 45-8.
3 Kyoto National Museum, Nihon no isho [Japanese classical literature as the theme in crafts ] (Kyoto, 1978), no. 102.
4 Arakawa Hirokazu and Uchida Tokugo (eds.), Kindai no shikkogei [Lacquer art of recent times] (Kyoto, 1985), 268-9.