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Sydney L Moss Ltd
12 Queen Street
London
London
W1J 5PG
England

Telephone +44 (0)20-7629 4670, +44 (0)20-7493 7374
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KICHOSAI (born c.1840) - Receive artist alerts » - More items from this artist »

A Japanese black lacquer box (c. 1870 to c. 1880 Japan)
Reference no. 39808
A Japanese black lacquer box

Signed/Inscribed/Dated

Signed beneath: Kichosai.

Dimensions

14.10cm wide    12.70cm high    6.10cm deep (5.55 inches wide  5.00 inches high  2.40 inches deep)

Provenance

Ex collection: William Sturgis Bigelow and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Condition

Good condition

Description / Expertise

Presumably intended for cosmetics, the box is decorated with trompe-l’œil rocks in iridescent silver and earth-red takamakie with inlays of aogai. Each rock is engraved with a single kanji character with alongside it a related 3–character inscription in gold hiramakie. The interior is plain apart from a scene of chidori above a stream in gold hiramakie beneath the cover. The characters and inscriptions refer to the names of a number of regions within Musashino Province (present day Tokyo and Saitama), names which largely disappeared in two reforms of 1871 and 1878 as a step to break with the han system associated with the earlier domains of the daimyo. The box may well have been made in commemoration of these changes.

Price

gbp 8000 (Pound Sterling)

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Please note: This is a guide conversion price only as we update our currency table every six hours, please check with dealer which currencies are an acceptable form of payment.