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Lot 98
A BLACK- AND GOLD-LACQUER SUZURIBAKO (BOX FOR WRITING UTENSILS) Edo period (1615-1868), 19th century
14 December 2023, 17:00 EST
New YorkSold for US$7,040 inc. premium
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A BLACK- AND GOLD-LACQUER SUZURIBAKO (BOX FOR WRITING UTENSILS)
Edo period (1615-1868), 19th century
Almost square, the flat-topped kabusebuta (overhanging lid) with rounded chiri-i ledge, the exterior decorated in gold, aokin, and colored hiramaki-e, takamaki-e, and togidashi maki-e with embellishments of gold and silver okibirame mosaic against a background of polished black roiro lacquer densely sprinkled with gold hirame flakes, depicting two shishi (mythical Chinese lions) crouching on a rock amid stormy seas and a gilt-metal sun in clouds above, the interior decorated in similar techniques with a saddled but riderless horse grazing beside a stream with peonies along its banks and a silvered-metal moon above, the interior of the box with a bon (brush tray) to the right and an ita (baseboard) to the left enclosing a suzuri (ink-grinding-stone) and a gilt-metal suiteki (water dropper) in the shape of a melon, the rims matte gold fundame lacquer, unsigned
1 5/8 × 8 1/4 × 8 7/8in (4.2 × 21.0 × 22.6cm)
Almost square, the flat-topped kabusebuta (overhanging lid) with rounded chiri-i ledge, the exterior decorated in gold, aokin, and colored hiramaki-e, takamaki-e, and togidashi maki-e with embellishments of gold and silver okibirame mosaic against a background of polished black roiro lacquer densely sprinkled with gold hirame flakes, depicting two shishi (mythical Chinese lions) crouching on a rock amid stormy seas and a gilt-metal sun in clouds above, the interior decorated in similar techniques with a saddled but riderless horse grazing beside a stream with peonies along its banks and a silvered-metal moon above, the interior of the box with a bon (brush tray) to the right and an ita (baseboard) to the left enclosing a suzuri (ink-grinding-stone) and a gilt-metal suiteki (water dropper) in the shape of a melon, the rims matte gold fundame lacquer, unsigned
1 5/8 × 8 1/4 × 8 7/8in (4.2 × 21.0 × 22.6cm)
Footnotes
Provenance
Christie's London, November 16, 2000, lot 63
Published
Spink and Son Limited, Japanese Lacquer: Miyabi Transformed, exhibition catalogue, London, 1997, cat. no.10
The grazing saddled but riderless horse is a humorous reference to a poem by Sōjō Henjō (816-890) in the Autumn section of the Kokinshū anthology: Na ni medete / oreru bakari zo / ominaeshi / ware ochiniki to / hito ni kataru na (Just because l loved / your name had to pick you, maidenflower / please do not let others know / the depths l have fallen to), with the implication that the venerable priest Henjō actually fell from his horse while admiring ominaeshi flowers. The motif of a riderless horse, which appears to owe its origins to the painter Hanabusa Itchō (1652-1724), appears on an unsigned suzuribako in the ldemitsu Art Museum, Tokyo, attributed to a member of the Yamamoto Shunshō family; the same design is included in Shunshō hyakuzu, a book of Shunshō lacquer designs, alongside the poem given above.1 In both cases, the horse design is seemingly unrelated to the motifs on the exterior of the lid. Other versions of the design include one where Henjō is actually depicted and another that includes characters from the poem.2
1. V.F. Weber, Koji Hōten, Dictionnaire à l'usage des amateurs et collectionneurs d'objets d'art Japonais et Chinois, Paris, Privately Printed, 1923, p.328 and fig.911; Nagoya City Museum, Maki-eshi Shunshō (The Maki-e Master Shunshō), exhibition catalogue, Nagoya, 1992, cat. no.85
2. Barry Davies Oriental Art Ltd., Inrō and Lacquer from the Jacques Carré Collection, exhibition catalogue, 2000, cat. no.43; Henri L. Joly and Kumasaku Tomita, Japanese Art and Handicraft, Loan Exhibition Held in Aid of the British Red Cross, London, 1916, p.57, no.8. plate LIX