A FINE JAPANESE CIRCULAR LACQUER SUZURIBAKO (WRITING BOX AND COVER) BY HARUI KOMIN (1869-1937)

A FINE JAPANESE CIRCULAR LACQUER SUZURIBAKO (WRITING BOX AND COVER) BY HARUI KOMIN (1869-1937)
MEIJI OR LATER, 19TH/20TH CENTURY

The lid embellished with a still life featuring a discarded o-boshi kabuto (samurai helmet) with chrysanthemum maedate (crest), a katana sword with tiger-skin scabbard and a gunsen war fan with a red sun; a flowering branch of prunus in the background; all rendered in gold, silver and polychrome takamaki-e, fundame and nashiji on the lustrous black roiro ground; the reverse with a waka poem in gold hiramaki-e and nashiji; the inside fitted with a tray holding a rectangular ink stone and a fitted suiteki (water dropper) shaped as a folded omikuji (fortune-telling paper strip), with a stamped maker's mark underneath; the box and cover with white metal rings, 26cm; in an tomobako wood box inscribed Kabuto maki-e, maru suzuribako (circular box for writing utensils with lacquer helmet design) and signed and sealed Komin. (5)

Harui Komin first studied painting at the Naniwa ga gakko (Naniwa Painting School). He later became a lacquer craftsman, working for the Ikeda Gomei Kaisha (Ikeda Co-operative Company, Osaka).