Title: Cabinet
Date: About 1910
Location: Japan
Materials: Wood, lacquered in hiramaki-e, takamaki-e, hirame, nashiji, and Gyobu; silver fittings
Dimensions: 156 x 16 x 63.2 cm
Accession Number: LX37
Other Notes:
Produced by the Samurai Shokai Company.
The sumptuous decoration of this cabinet shows how traditional lacquer styles were thriving at the very end of the Meiji Era. An accompanying letter claims that the cabinet was made in Japan for the Japan-British Exhibition as a representative piece of Japanese craftsmanship but was not finished in time for shipment to England.
It was purchased in Japan in 1910-11 from “Samurai Shokai, Art dealers, Tokio, Yokohama.” The Samurai Shokai of Kanagawa (i.e. Yokohama), recorded as having won a gold prize for a group of metalwork pieces shown at the Japan-British Exhibition, was a well-known company boasting “a most extensive collection of antique porcelains, bronzes, silver, lacquer wares, and embroideries and new curios of every description.”
Bibliography:
Earle, Joe (1999). Splendors of Meiji: treasures of Imperial Japan: Masterpieces from the Khalili Collection. St. Petersburg, Florida: Broughton International Inc. ISBN 1874780137 pages 208-209
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