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FINE JAPANESE LACQUER FROM THE BOSTON MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. Lots number 71 through to 141 include over a hundred pieces recently de-accessioned from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, to benefit the acquisitions fund. Much of the early collection of the Boston Museum was acquired by a remarkable man, William Sturgis Bigelow (d.1926). Bigelow was a committed Buddhist who spent seven years from 1881 to 1888 in Japan, following in the footsteps of his friends Edward Morse and Ernest Fenollosa and becoming together with them eminent in the field of Japanese art studies. Bigelow returned to Boston from his long sojourn in Japan in 1889, and presented the museum with several thousand Japanese antiquities of various kinds. He was to become a Trustee of that museum, and was later honoured by the Japanese government with the most distinguished decoration of Commander of the Imperial Order of the Rising Sun. But Bigelow was not the only enterprising benefactor of the BMFA, and the initials or names of other collectors may be found on old labels on many of the pieces offered. Japanese lacquer is admired as much today as it was when Bigelow, Higginson, Weld, and others were collecting it. The beauty and variety of Japanese lacquer, particularly the technically advanced gold and coloured maki-e of the Muromachi (1396 -1604), Edo (1604-1867), and Meiji (1867-1912) periods sets it apart from the work of other nations and makes it so desirable for collectors. The present collection holds many delightful surprises for the discerning collector. There are pieces dating from the 16th to the late 19th Centuries, although the techniques used and the design motifs may originate in the more distant past. Lacquer has been used in Japan since pre-historic times to coat vessels and implements, since it is hard, durable, impervious to water, and virtually corrosion resistant. It is accordingly used for coating all kinds of objects, both utilitarian and ornamental. It is used for coating arms and armour, furniture, domestic wares, games, musical instruments, Buddhist sculpture and other paraphernalia, personal accoutrements, and architectural components. Lacquer was first coloured either black with charcoal or red with cinnabar. Yellow, green and other colours were added later, in addition to the gold or other metal powder decoration known as maki-e. Techniques were brought from China, such as tsuikoku and tsuishu, whereby deep carvings were made in thick black and red lacquer. Lacquer requires a high humidity for the liquid sap to harden, so that many thin layers have to be dried one after another in order to build up a the thickness required for heavy use. Layers of alternating colours can be built up to form contours when the lacquer is carved. Owing to the time involved in the manufacture of such pieces they were naturally expensive, and the technique was frequently reserved for smaller items. There are examples of this technique in the collection, in addition to examples of similar techniques such as kamakura bori, in which the wooden ground is sculpted before the lacquer is applied. Other Chinese methods of shell inlay, or raden were also adopted, copied, and refined. Towards the end of the Ming dynasty Chinese designs on ceramics were adapted copied, and provided the inspiration for a type of export lacquer known as Nanban, or 'Southern Barbarian' ware. Crowded bird and flower designs were depicted in gold maki-e with some shell inlay on objects made primarily for export to the West. A rare cylindrical box in Nanban style in the sale is of the type used during the late 16th and early 17th Century by Japanese Christians to contain the Holy Sacrament, and it is likely that a Christian motif was removed from the lid after the prescription of Christianity in the late 1630s. Much of the very best lacquer is unsigned since it was made by hereditary retainers of the families of daimyo, the feudal lords who controlled the provinces in Japan under the rule of the Shogun, or military dictator. The discerning collector can obtain pieces marked with the family badges, or mon, of the Daimyo, like the two large cylindrical boxes in the collection each with the gold-lacquered triple hollyhock mon used by the Tokugawa Shoguns. (Lot 116) Fine quality decorative Japanese lacquer survives from as early as the Nara period in the 8th Century Shosoin, the repository of the effects of the Emperor Shomu. Techniques of colouring lacquer, forming surfaces with gold dust, decorative shell inlay, or raden, sprinkled gold dust set into the lacquer while still tacky, or maki-e (sprinkled pictures), and combinations of such methods were well established at this time. A shallow rectangular gold-lacquered document box from the Boston collection with phoenixes in gold, silver, red and shades of grey high relief lacquer may have been inspired by Nara period designs in the Shosoin, and possibly made by one of the elite group of artists and craftsmen who were appointed by the Imperial Household to supply copies and objects inspired by the Shosoin collection. (Lot 121) The stability of the military government and the rising fortunes of the merchant class in the great cities during the Edo period (1604-1867) provided the lacquer artists with a market for the highest quality products. Continuing traditions of such as calligraphy, Noh, the Tea Ceremony, and the refined Edo period lifestyle ensured that the lacquered equipment used was passed on from generation to generation. Calligraphy being one of the highest forms of essential social attainment, writing boxes to contain ink, rubbing stones, and sets of brushes became the vehicle for some of the greatest lacquerwork. A fine 18th Century example attributable to the work of the later generation of Igarashi Doho with Autumnal flowers in high relief maki-e (takamaki-e) and inlaid with details in various coloured materials is but one of several such offered. (Lot 87) For the Noh theatre there were boxes for masks and musical instruments for the orchestra. One of the most opulent pieces in the collection is a magnificent cylindrical flute case richly lacquered and with lateral bands of regular geometric and irregular inlays of gold flakes, and with insects set in high relief with lacquer and shell inlay. (Lot 111) For the Tea Ceremony there were lacquered boxes to contain tea bowls, sets of Tea Ceremony equipment and incense boxes . For domestic use there are small and large pieces of furniture, lacquered sets of games, and boxes for cosmetic equipment including mirrors. Among the early pieces from Bigelow's collection is a 16th Century rectangular metal rimmed mirror box with a regular array of stylized chrysanthemums in gold takamaki-e on a nashiji (aventurine) ground. (Lot 74) There are several important miniature incense boxes given by Bigelow, Higginson, and others. (Lots 71 and 73) Perhaps the most elegant pieces of Japanese lacquer are those made by togidashi-maki-e (literally polishing out sprinkled pictures), in which the required design is formed with different materials within several layers of lacquer, and when set hard the whole is polished down so that the illustration is gradually revealed both perfectly level with and sunken just beneath the surface. A writing box with a stag, 'magic' fungi, and flying bats, all auspicious symbols formed by fine gold togidashi maki-e within a circle on a black ground and given by CG Weld, a contemporary of Bigelow, is a perfect example of this technique. (Lot 88) In the Meiji (1867-1912) and Taisho (1912) eras pictorial lacquer ware possibly reached its highest technical level, with, as in other fields of Japanese art, a radical diversity in design content. Designs of the Muromachi period and the later 17th Century styles of Koetsu and the Rimpa school were revived in newer ways. Pieces by Shibata Zeshin, who became a lecturer in the Tokyo School of Art and a Tesihitsu Gigei-In [Artist Appointed to the Imperial Household] and lesser-known Meiji period lacquerers vie with traditional maki-e durng this time. A document tray of the late 19th Century signed Sunryusai Kiyochika looks from a distance to be of solid gold, but is of rich gold maki-e sculpted in relief and with a variety of different gold flakes and powders producing a kind of painting in sculpted lacquer of torrent cascading down a rocky landscape beneath pines and cherries, exemplifies high art in the plastic crafts. (Lot 99) Offered for sale by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston to benefit acquisition funds

A KOGO [INCENSE BOX]

MUROMACHI PERIOD (14TH - 15TH CENTURY)

Details

A KOGO [INCENSE BOX]
MUROMACHI PERIOD (14TH - 15TH CENTURY)
Of rectangular form with flush-fitting cover and pewter rims, decorated in togidashi-e and hiramaki-e over a nashiji ground with yamagane inlays, the cover decorated with kikyo [Chinese bell flowers] and dewdrops, the interior of the cover gilt
8.1cm. long

Provenance

William Sturgis Bigelow

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

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