Live Auction 20991Japanese and Korean Art
A VERY RARE LACQUER INRO-STYLE BOX AND NETSUKE
Lot 140

A VERY RARE LACQUER INRO-STYLE BOX AND NETSUKE

EDO PERIOD (18TH CENTURY), SIGNED KYOHO KANOTOSHI SHUJITSU RITSUO SEI (MADE BY RITSUO IN AUTUMN 1721) AND INLAID CERAMIC SEAL KAN (OGAWA HARITSU, 1663-1747)

Closed20 September 2022

Price Realised

USD 12,600

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A VERY RARE LACQUER INRO-STYLE BOX AND NETSUKE
EDO PERIOD (18TH CENTURY), SIGNED KYOHO KANOTOSHI SHUJITSU RITSUO SEI (MADE BY RITSUO IN AUTUMN 1721) AND INLAID CERAMIC SEAL KAN (OGAWA HARITSU, 1663-1747)
The lacquer box and cover with brass hinges and cord holes opens on side, designed to simulate a chipped and cracked ink cake, each side with a sunken panel, one side with an elephant bearing a inlaid ceramic seating pad, and stylized musical instruments around, the reverse with Chinese characters, both sides with a incised crackled ground, brass fittings, signed and sealed on reverse ; netsuke in matching style as cut-in-half inkstone, one side with dragon and reverse with Chinese characters, signed and dated on side
3 1/5 in. (8.1 cm.) high

Specialist note

Ogawa Haritsu, also known as Ritsuo, one of the great individualists in the history of lacquer, was a poet as well as a painter, potter and lacquerer. In the 1680s, he became a disciple of the haiku poet Matsuo Basho (1644-1694). Haritsu turned to lacquer after 1707, the year his friends Hattori Ransetsu and Takarai Kikaku, both disciples of Basho, died. He adopted the art name Ritsuo, or "Old man in a torn bamboo hat," in 1712. The name suggests a poet or artist wandering carefree.