EDO PERIOD (18TH CENTURY)

Details

A Lacquer Incense Container (Kogo)
Edo period (18th century)
The square box with rounded edges and designed with pine trees on a shoreline in gold and silver hiramaki-e and shell inlays and kirigane, the surrounding areas decorated with combed waves in diagonal bands in kinji and roiro-nuri, the interior lacquered nashiji with plovers in gold hiramaki-e; pewter rims
3 x 3 x 1½in. (7.7 x 7.7 x 3.8cm.)

Provenance

Charles A. Greenfield, New York

Exhibited

Japan House Gallery, New York, "The Magnificent Three: Lacquer Netsuke and Tsuba, Selections from the Collection of Charles A. Greenfield," 1972. autumn

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, "Japanese Lacquer, 1600-1900, Selections from the Charles A. Greenfield Collection," 1980.9.4--10.19

Lot Essay

PUBLISHED:
Andrew J. Pekarik, Japanese Lacquer, 1600-1900, Selections from the Charles A. Greenfield Collection, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980), fig. 35.

The unusual background design of this box could have been inspired by patterns found in textiles popular in 18th-century Japan. The repetitive, linear nature of the pattern may represent waves crashing against the shore and together with the plovers on the interior could be an allusion to a traditional poetry theme associated with winter.

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