KAJIKAWA: A VERY RARE FIVE-CASE GOLD LACQUER INRO WITH A WHALING SCENE

拍品描述

KAJIKAWA: A VERY RARE FIVE-CASE GOLD LACQUER INRO WITH A WHALING SCENE By a member of the Kajikawa family, signed Kajikawa 梶川 saku 作 with a red pot seal Ei 榮 Japan, 19th century, Edo period (1615-1868) Of upright rectangular form and oval section, bearing a luminous kinji ground finely decorated in gold takamaki-e and hiramaki-e with a continuous coastal landscape. Several fishing boats labor across the waves as the immense back of a whale suddenly emerges from the water, rendered in black takamaki-e and spouting from its blowhole. The interiors are lacquered in nashiji with gold fundame rims. Signed underneath in gold KAJIKAWA saku [made by Kajikawa] with the red pot seal Ei. With a globular porcelain ojime. HEIGHT 9.1 cm, LENGTH 4.6 cm The Kajikawa family was among the most celebrated dynasties of Japanese lacquer artists and served the Tokugawa shogunate for generations. Many works bear only the family name, often accompanied by a red pot seal. See Edward A. Wrangham and Joe Earle, eds., The Index of Inro Artists, 1995, pp. 107-108. Whaling scenes are very rarely encountered on inro. The present composition is particularly dramatic, contrasting the immense scale of the surfacing whale with the small boats surrounding it.

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