A PORTABLE WRITING BOX AND STATIONERY BOX (KAKESUZURIBAKO)

EDO PERIOD (18TH CENTURY)

Details

A PORTABLE WRITING BOX AND STATIONERY BOX (KAKESUZURIBAKO)
edo period (18th century)
Of rectangular shape with rounded corners with an overall roiro-nuri ground, lacquered on the lid in gold and silver takamaki-e, hiramaki-e, okibirame and e-nashiji with the figure of Ono no Komachi, wearing a sedge hat and straw rain cape, seated by a wicker basket with chrysanthemums below distant, cloud-crossed mountains in the upper right, the basket of inlaid silver and gilt-metal and the blossoms of inlaid shakudo, gilt-metal and coral, additional hills and clouds placed on opposite side corners; the underside of the lid and lower interior of the writing box below the removable implement tray decorated in gold low-relief takamaki-e with a thatched hut, bamboo and young pines on a rich nashiji ground; fitted with an oblong inkstone with fundame edges and a silver fan-shaped mizuire engraved with flowers and resting in a silver saucer; the stationery compartment below the writing box nashiji, the base of the boxes nashiji and the rims silver
8 1/8 x 6 3/8 x 3 3/8in. (20.6 x 16.2 x 8.6cm.)

Lot Essay

Ono no Komachi was a court lady ranked among the Six Poetic Geniuses (Rokkasen). One of her poems from the tenth-century Kokin Wakashu anthology seems to describe this scene:

Alas! The beauty
of the flowers has faded
and come to nothing,
while I have watched the rain,
lost in melancholy thought.¹

1. Kokin Wakashu: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry, trans. Helen Craig McCullough. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985), p. 35.