Suzuribako lacquer writing box with sparrows by the water’s edge, Japan late Edo-Meiji

Suzuribako lacquer writing box with sparrows by the water’s edge
Japan, late Edo or early Meiji period, 19th century

Suzuribako in black lacquer, decorated in gold with takamaki-e and hiramaki-e on a ro-iro ground lightly powdered with nashiji. The lid shows several sparrows flying above a small stream bordered with grasses, while in the foreground other birds are perched on bundles of reeds. The design plays very elegantly on the contrast between the dark mass of the ground, the luminous sinuosity of the stream, and the liveliness of the birds. This gold-on-black technique, especially attractive here, belongs to one of the great visual languages of 19th-century Japanese lacquer.

The inside of the lid repeats the same landscape without the sparrows, while two birds still appear on the inner box. The lower fitted compartment can be removed, and the decoration continues beneath this hidden section. This detail is important: it indicates an especially careful execution, in which the decoration is conceived throughout the whole object and does not stop at the immediately visible parts. Examples preserved in Japanese collections show clearly that this kind of decorative continuity inside the box is regarded as a mark of very high quality.

The box retains its inkstone with a gilt border, as well as a small silver water dropper, set in a silver corolla itself mounted on a gilt-metal base. This refinement in the treatment of the suiteki and its support responds to the richness of the lacquer decoration and reinforces the precious unity of the ensemble. The suzuribako has retained its period tomobako.

The subject of sparrows by the water’s edge belongs to a long Japanese decorative tradition in which birds, grasses, and streams create a living, rhythmic, and immediately legible space. This type of composition, which combines the movement of the bird with the course of the water, finds several parallels in older suzuribako with river-and-bird decoration, notably in works preserved in the Tokyo National Museum and the Kyoto National Museum.

With its very deep black ground, its gold highlights, the quality of its decoration extending even into the hidden parts, and the care given to the interior fittings, this suzuribako belongs to a finely made production that may be placed at the turning point between the late Edo and early Meiji periods.

Dimensions: height 4.5 cm; width 22 cm; depth 23.5 cm.