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

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.