
Jeff Olson
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Sold for US$12,800 inc. premium
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Provenance
Christie's London, November 16, 2000, lot 67
Published
Spink and Son Limited, Japanese Lacquer: Miyabi Transformed, exhibition catalogue, London, 1997, cat. no. 20
The design on this richly worked tebako has a distinguished pedigree, appearing for the first time in its full form as a motif for lacquer decoration on the Hatsune no Chōdo, an extensive set of wedding gifts created in the late 1630s for the wedding of the infant daughter of the third shogun. The key to the identity of the scene is provided by the small bird in the branches of the cherry tree at bottom center. The opening paragraphs of Chapter 23, Hatsune (The First Song of Spring), of Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji, the great novel of courtly life authored by Lady Murasaki Shikibu in the early eleventh century), narrate Genji's New Year's Day visit to the quarters of several of his ladies, one of whom sends over an artificial bird that is made the subject of a poem: Toshitsuki o / matsu ni hikarete / furuhito ni / kyō uguisu no / Hatsune kikase yo (My old eyes are caught / by pines reminding me of / passing months and years / I hope today I'll hear the song / of spring's first warbler).1
1. Murasaki Shikibu (Edward Seidensticker trans.), The Tale of Genji, London, Secker and Warburg, 1976, pp.409-411