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A Japanese Iron Box with Gold, Silver and Bronze Inlay signed Jomi Eisuke
19th Century
A Japanese Iron Box with Gold, Silver and Bronze Inlay signed Jomi Eisuke
This gold-inlaid iron, bronze and silver box with rounded corners features a playful scene of a crab and frog tussling under a blossoming peach tree. The frog’s expression is outraged; his leg is clutched in his enemy’s determined pincer. Crabs represent courage and a warrior’s resilience, while frogs symbolise safe travels; ‘frog’ in Japanese (kaeru) is a homonym with the word for ‘to return’. This scene is therefore a humorous inversion of a viewer’s typical associations: the honourable crab pinches the supposedly safe frog on his journey home. Surrounding this scene is a border with a finely woven rattan pattern embellished with auspicious symbols; an interlocking pattern lightly wraps around its sides.
Jomi Eisuke II, 1839–1899
This box is signed by Jomi Sei (Jomi Eisuke II, 1839–1899), who was a prodigious metal craftsman from Tokyo often commissioned by the Imperial Household Agency. Exhibiting frequently at international fairs, he won prizes in 1878 and 1889 in Paris. His skill is evident here in the painstaking detail of the leaves, flowers and water ripples surrounding the central battle set in relief against the cover’s surface. Historically, his works have been given as diplomatic gifts, including King Edward VII in 1881.
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