Japanese lacquer suzuri’bako 硯箱 (writing box) with shishi Hotei design

Superb rectangular ‘Rinpa School’-style black lacquer suzuri’bako (writing box) with a slightly arched well-fitted overhanging cover with rounded corners. The lid with a design of a gosho’guruma (ox-drawn carriage for Heian-era nobles) featuring golden hiramaki-e (low-relief lacquer design) and takamaki-e (high-relief lacquer design), inlays of lead and shiny mother-of-pearl (raden). The design continues along the sides. The reverse of the lid decorated with two large curving pine trees (matsu) executed in the same way, but also with intricate dots of tiny pieces of inlaid blue mother-of-pearl along the golden trunk. The interior shaped to hold various scholar’s accessories, including a partially gold lacquered inkstone (suzuri) and a bronze waterdropper (suiteki) shaped like a mythical minogame. The interior inscribed ‘Hokkyô Kôrin zô’ (Made by Hokkyô Kôrin). Referring to the design being in style of the master Ogata Kôrin, but the actual lacquer artist is unknown. It is a homage to Kôrin by an artist that followed the school of Rinpa. Including black lacquer wooden tomobako (tomobako). The Rinpa School was a key part of the Edo period revival of indigenous Japanese artistic interests described by the term yamato-e. Paintings, textiles, ceramics, and lacquerwares were decorated by Rinpa artists with vibrant colours applied in a highly decorative and patterned manner. Favoured themes, which often contained evocative references to nature and the seasons, were drawn from Japanese literature, notably The Tale of Genji, The Tales of Ise...

Exceptional, rare and completely restored wooden Sado ishô dansu (cabinet of drawers) with elaborately decorated open work iron hardware, in two sections. Fully restored, cleaned and waxed. The exterior is made of hinoki cypress wood. Only slightly varnished, giving it a tad warmer colour. This soft underground lets the refined hardware stand out even more. The upper part consists of two large drawers. The lower part with two drawers of different size and a hinged door. The interior behind the door with three small drawers. All the drawers are very deep and have a lot of volume, for easy storage. They run very smoothly as well. The cabinet has extensively decorated hardware. The corner pieces of the drawers with stylized pine trees. The large decorative lock plates each with their own unique design of different auspicious animals; a peacock, a phoenix, a crane and a minogame. The hinged door decorated with different attributes of the Seven Gods of Fortune...

Late Edo (1614 - 1868) period incense storage box in stacked, double fan design. Fans have bamboo and plum design with a chrysanthemum crest. Silve...

Suzuribako, or writing box, of rectangular shape, decorated with an imposing architecture realized in hira maki-e lacquer, probably a palatial structure, situated beside a waterfall...