A Lacquer Accesory Box (Tebako)

EDO PERIOD (19TH CENTURY)

Details

A Lacquer Accesory Box (Tebako)
Edo period (19th century)
The rounded rectangular box with lobed corners and lacquered in gold takamaki-e and hiramaki-e and gold togidashi with a flock of plovers circling over a rocky shoreline, the rocks with kirigane, inalid shell, gold foil applied to crevices executed in uchikomi and lichens in silver takamaki-e, each rocky outcropping also inlaid with the characters of a poem from the Kokinshu in metal patinated in shakudo, the removable tray with a continuation of the design, interiors lacquered nashiji, base nashiji; rims silver
8¼ x 6 3/8 x 4 1/8in. (20.9 x 16.1 x 10.5cm.)

Lot Essay

Published:
Shiozaki Kazuko, ed., Maki-e saiko (Lacquer reconsidered) Yuraku 70 (January, 1999), pp. 6, 14, 24.

The characters incorporated into the design of plovers (chidori) on the exterior of the box and inner tray create a felicitous poem taken from a tenth-century imperial anthology:

Shio no yama
sashide no iso ni
sumu chidori
kimi ga miyo o ba
yachiyo to zo naku

The translation is given by Laurel Rodd and Mary Henkins in Kokinshu: A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 146, as follows:

The plovers on the
jutting crags beneath briny
Shio Mountain cry out
"May the years of your life
number eight-thousand and more"

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