Page 26 - Christie's The Joseph Collection of Japanese Art

(end view) (side view detail showing laden boat)

The imagery on the box complements the poem. On the lid, for example, low hills Ryumonsho [dragon prize] at the frst Domestic Industrial Exposition of 1877 and
are shrouded in bands of mist. Cherry trees have begun to lose their petals and the Myogisho [exquisite technique prize] class three at the second Exposition of
bundles of faggots lie on the ground, waiting to be shipped downstream. The Uji 1881. Around this time, after viewing the collection of the Shosoin in Nara, the
River in Kyoto, indicated by the familiar bridge on the front of the box, runs around 8th century repository of objects dedicated to the Emperor Shomu (701-756), he
all four sides. The image of brushwood-laden boats is realised in three-dimensional became interested in reviving classical lacquer styles and played an active role
form as shakudo attachments drifting on the river on both of the long sides. in the mid-Meiji revival of traditional lacquers. He was further commissioned in
1882 by the Japanese government Museums Department to make a copy of the
The poem is by Jakuren (ca. 1139-1202), a Buddhist priest and classical poet 12th century National Treasure Katawaguruma makie tebako [a tebako with ox
who helped compile the Shin Kokinshu, the eighth Imperial poetry anthology, cartwheels in a stream] now in the collection of Tokyo National Museum. In 1888,
completed in 1205. His lay name was Sadanaga, and he was adopted as a child his similar work won the silver medal in the Nihon bijutsu kyokai [Japanese art
by his uncle, the famous court poet Fujiwara no Toshinari (Shunzei). Eventually association] exhibition in Tokyo and was acquired by the Imperial Household. In
he took holy orders, but throughout his life he remained active in court poetry 1890, Shomin became the frst head of the lacquer department when the Tokyo
gatherings and also travelled extensively. His best poems evoke sabi [an School of Fine Arts was founded. At about the same time he was also one of thirty
atmosphere of loneliness] and he is thought to have written some of the most leading lacquer artists who helped found the Japan Lacquer Industry Society with
memorable verses of his day. the idea of improving the standards of their craft.
The maker of this present box Ogawa Shomin was born in Edo in 1847 as Keijiro, A similar example previously in the collection of the Meiji Emperor was sold in
the son of a metalworker named Chuzo. He was apprenticed at the age of sixteen Christie’s New York, 17 Sept. 1997, lot 222. This is published in Stephen Little
to the maki-e specialist Nakayama Komin (1808-1870), becoming independent in and Edmund J. Lewis, View of the Pinnacle: Japanese Lacquer Writing Boxes: The
1868. He studied briefy with the Rimpa painter Ikeda Koson (1801-1866). He later Lewis Collection of Suzuribako, (Honolulu, 2011), p. 190-193, no. 74. Other works by
used several go (art names) including Seishu, Seiami and Hakuan. He exhibited Shomin are in the collections of museums including the Tokyo National Museum
a piece of lacquer at the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876. He was awarded the and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

(interior)