A JAPANESE MOTHER-OF-PEARL INLAID BLACK AND GILT-LACQUERED KNIFE URN
Lot 422

A JAPANESE MOTHER-OF-PEARL INLAID BLACK AND GILT-LACQUERED KNIFE URN

KYOTO-NAGASAKI STYLE, CIRCA 1800

Closed1 July 2010

Price Realised

EUR 1,875

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A JAPANESE MOTHER-OF-PEARL INLAID BLACK AND GILT-LACQUERED KNIFE URN
KYOTO-NAGASAKI STYLE, CIRCA 1800
The domed lid rising to reveal the green velvet lined stepped interior with five stepped tiers, the lid and body inlaid overal with floral sprays
74 cm. high (closed)

Specialist note

There are comparable urns in the Ashmolean museum, Oxford and in the Peabody Essex museum, Salem. Both are illustrated in O. Impey and C. Jörg, Japanese Export Lacquer, Amsterdam, 2005, pp. 267, 328; ills. 561-562, 637-638.

The Kyoto-Nagasaki mother-of-pearl inlaid lacquer is more restrained than the later lacquer wares associated with Nagasaki which used larger scale mother-of-pearl inlays with coloured backgrounds. An inscription to the inside of a facetted knife urn matches an inscription to the inside of the lid of the Oxford urn, identifying both to a workshop in Kyoto.