A GOOD JAPANESE LACQUER INCENSE BOX

A GOOD JAPANESE LACQUER INCENSE BOX, INNER TRAY AND COVER, KOGO

EDO/MEIJI PERIOD

Shaped as three overlapping fans decorated in silver and gold maki-e, one with a large cart and prunus flowers, another with an ornate curtain and a bouquet of flowers and the third with a beauty gazing through a circular window, marumado, with bamboo before it, the reverse with a flock of geese flying before a silver moon, the inner tray with foliage hanging over a stream and the sides with further blooms and branches, signed in a gold rectangular cartouche Shu in sosho and Raku in tensho scripts for Ozawa Shuraku (1830-1894), 13.3cm. (3)

Provenance: from the collection of Dr A W Henny (1896-1976), The Hague. Dr. A W Henny, in the family named as 'Tante Dons', was a journalist and lawyer at the International Labor Office of the League of Nations and traveled in that position throughout the world, including to India, the Dutch East Indies, China and Tibet.

Cf. F Meinertzhagen, The Meinertzhagen Card Index on Netsuke in the British Museum, vol.2, p.791 where the author discusses other pieces by the same artist including a silver kagamibuta bearing the same signature. Also, see R E Haynes, The Index of Japanese Sword Fittings and Associated Artists, no.H08847, for more information on Shuraku, who is described as a prolific metalworker working in Tokyo in the second half of the 20th century.