Japanese Lacquer & Works of Art
A 16th CENTURY JAPANESE LACQUER SUZURIBAKO DEPICTING THE TALE OF GENJI
Width 23 cm;
Depth 21 cm.
Further images
Provenance
Major Kidder
Matsumoto sale, Glendinning Company, London, 1955, no. 16
Charles A. Greenfield
Edmund Lewis
Private collection, recorded on a label on the pencil box
Collection of Jean Saporta
Charles A. Greenfield formed one of the foremost private collections of Japanese lacquer in the United States, selections from which were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1980. This writing box was published in the catalogue of his collection in 1972 and subsequently in the catalogue of Edmund J. Lewis’s collection of suzuribako in 2011.
Literature
Harold P. Stern, Magnificent Three: Lacquer, Netsuke, and Tsuba: Selections from the Collection of Charles A. Greenfield (New York, 1972), no. 49.
Stephen Little and Edmund J. Lewis, View of the Pinnacle: Japanese Lacquer Writing Boxes: The Lewis Collection of Suzuribako (Honolulu, 2011), no. 6.
A JAPANESE LACQUER SUZURIBAKO
Momoyama period, late 16th century
A rectangular writing box with a domed cover and rounded sides, decorated in gold, silver and black lacquer using hiramaki-e, takamaki-e, nashiji, hirame, kimpun and kirikane. The cover depicts Genji and his attendants beside an ox-drawn carriage within the precincts of the Sumiyoshi Shrine.
The interior of the cover is divided in a katami-gawari design, with chrysanthemums against a nashiji ground on one side and flying plovers against black lacquer sprinkled with gold powder on the other, incorporating mother-of-pearl inlay. The interior is fitted with a red lacquer inkstone box and cover, a mandarin duck water dropper and a single brush tray.
The cover depicts Genji arriving with his attendants at the Sumiyoshi Shrine, an episode from the “Channel Buoys” (Miotsukushi) chapter of The Tale of Genji. Lady Akashi, his former lover and the mother of his daughter, is visiting the shrine at the same time. Although they do not meet, Genji sends her a poem through a messenger, and she replies with one of her own, expressing their continuing attachment.
These poems turn on the double meaning of miotsukushi: channel markers that guide boats through shallow water, and a phrase meaning to give oneself entirely in love. The shrine is identified by its torii gate and arched bridge, set among pines and willows.
The contrasting interior decoration is characteristic of Kōdai-ji style lacquer of the Momoyama period. A sharply angled division separates the chrysanthemums from the plovers, while the mandarin duck water dropper introduces an emblem associated with marital harmony.
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