WITH SIGNATURE KAWANOBE ITCHO, MEIJI PERIOD (LATE 19TH/EARLY 20TH CENTURY)

The designs on the top and sides have their literary origins in Chapter 23, Hatsune [The First Warbler], of Genji monogatari [The Tale of Genji, see also lot 67]. This example of the Meiji-period (1868-1912) revival of the classical style of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries bears the signature of Kawanobe Itcho (1830-1910), one of the leading lacquerers of his day. He received his initial training from a member of the Koami family and became an official supplier to the ruling Tokugawa family in 1849. After the ousting of the shoguns and the restoration of Imperial rule in 1868, he was a keen participant in government exhibitions and in 1895 showed a writing-box and writing-table with the Hatsune design. In 1896 he was made a member of the order of Teishitsu gigeiin [Imperial Craftsmen]. Although this box is very much in the revived Koami-family idiom championed by Itcho, the format and style of the signature is atypical, suggesting that it may be a later addition.1

1 Christie's, New York, 19 March 1997, lot no. 231, a zushidana [cabinet] by Itcho dating from 1907;
MOA Museum of Art, Kindai Nihon no shikkogei [Japanese lacquer art of recent times] (Atami, 1983), 101;
Wrangham, E. A., The Index of Inro Artists (Harehope, Northumberland, 1995), s.v. 'Itcho'.