EDO-MEIJI PERIOD (19TH CENTURY), SIGNED KAJIKAWA SAKU AND WITH KAO AND RED-LAQUER SEAL NAKAYAMA (NAKAYAMA SHIBAYAMA)

Details

A Three-Case Shibayama-Style Lacquer Inro**
Edo-Meiji period (19th century), signed Kajikawa saku and with kao and red-laquer seal Nakayama (Nakayama Shibayama)
The rounded-rectangular inro lacquered in two shades of gold takamaki-e and hiramaki-e, gold and black togidashi, hirame and kinpun against a bright kinji ground and designed on one side with a fisherman seated on an embankment with his foot braced against an old piling as he struggles to land his catch, the reverse revealing that the fisherman's hook is snagged in the topknot of a boy who is fishing for eels, the fisherman's catch draped around his neck as he bends down with his basket, the figures all rendered in inlays of ivory, colored ivory, shell, lacquer and coral; interior cases nashiji; fitted with a lacquer bead ojime and an ivory netsuke of a frog with a fish in his jaws on a lotus leaf
3½in. (8.9cm.) long

Provenance

Geoffrey Moss, London
George Cohen, Birmingham

Special notice

Prospective purchasers are advised that several countries prohibit the importation of property containing materials from endangered species, including but not limited to coral, ivory and tortoiseshell. Accordingly, prospective purchasers should familiarize themselves with relevant customs regulations prior to bidding if they intend to import this lot into another country.

Lot Essay

PUBLISHED:
George Cohen, In Search of Netsuke and Inro (Birmingham: Jacey Group, 1974), pl. 329.

The design for this inro is taken from the print Ochanomizu tsuribito (Fishermen at Ochanomizu) from the series Edo meisho dogi zukushi (Joyful events at famous places in Edo) by Utagawa Hiroshige II (1826-1869), published by Tsujiokaya Bunsuke in 1859.

For a reference to this inro, see E. A. Wrangham, The Index of Inro Artists (Alnwick: Harehope Publications, 1995), pg. 194, under the entry for Nakayama Shibayama.

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