Page 25 - 2019 September 11th Bonhams Lewis Collection Japanese and Korean Art NYC

(interior view)

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OGAWA SHOMIN (1847-1891) One of the half-dozen leading lacquerers of the Meiji era, the short-
A fine lacquer kakesuzuribako (stacking writing box and lived Ogawa Shomin was apprenticed at the age of 16 to the lacquer
stationery box) artist Nakayama Komin (1808-1870, see also lot 563) and became
Meiji era (1868-1912), circa 1878 an independent artist in 1868, making his international debut with a
The two-tier rectangular box with rounded corners and flush-fitting piece at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, as well as
cover, the lower stationery box supporting the writing box, decorated showing frequently at government-sponsored exhibitions within Japan.
overall in several shades of gold hiramaki-e, takamaki-e and nashiji, During the 1880s he became increasingly involved in the creation
with embellishments of kirikane, and inlaid in gold and mother-of- of meticulous reproductions of early Japanese lacquer and in 1890,
pearl on a roiro-nuri and kinpun ground, the cover with scattered the year before his death, he was named first director of the Lacquer
bundles of brushwood among cherry-blossom petals beneath pine Department at Tokyo Art School. Had he lived longer, Shomin would
and blossoming cherry trees on distant hills shrouded in clouds, undoubtedly have been elevated to the prestigious order of Teishitsu
and a poem in hiragana syllables, the underside of the cover Gigeiin (Artist-Craftsman to the Imperial Household), the precursor of
with tomoe(whorls), seaweed, and scattered pine needles, the top today’s Ningen Kokuho (Living National Treasure).
tier fitted with a removable frame fitted with an inkstone and silver
water dropper cast as a conjoined tomoe, the sides of the box
with a bridge above stylized waves beneath clouds and applied
with shakudo boats carrying brushwood, the interior decorated in
cut gold foil and mura-nashiji with tomoe, seaweed and needle-like
pieces of kirikane, the rims silver, signed on the underside Shomin
saku (Made by Shomin)
With a wood tomobako storage box inscribed on the cover
Suzuribako, Jakuren Hoshi kai (Writing box with poem by Priest
Jakuren) and with paper labels Otanakazari (Display item) Meiji
juichinen rokugatsu Bijutsu Tenrankai goyohin (Imperial piece, shown
at the Art Exhibition, June 1888) and signed on the underside of
the cover Shinshin Shomin tsukuru (Made by Shinshin Shomin) and
sealed Shomin no in; inscribed on a paper label on the underside of
the cover Meiji Tenno ibutsu (Bequest of the Meiji Emperor), Taisho
gannen junigatsu sanjuichinichi hairyo (Received December 31, 1912)
and sealed on a paper label Taisho gannen sentei ibutsu no sho (Seal
of the late Emperor’s bequests, 1912)
7 3/8 x 6 7/8 x 3 9/16in (18.8 x 17.5 x 9cm)

$10,000-15,000
Provenance
Emperor Meiji
Previously sold, Christie’s, New York, September 17, 1997, lot 222

Published
Stephen Little and Edmund J. Lewis, View of the Pinnacle: Japanese
Lacquer Writing Boxes: The Lewis Collection of Suzuribako,
Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2011, cat. no. 74

PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF DRS. EDMUND AND JULIE LEWIS | 23