Ogawa Haritsu 小川破笠 (Ritsuō 笠翁, 1663–1747) INRŌ WITH DARUMA 達磨図古墨写印籠 Edo period (1615–1868), 1744
£10,000 - £15,000
Ogawa Haritsu 小川破笠 (Ritsuō 笠翁, 1663–1747) INRŌ WITH DARUMA 達磨図古墨写印籠
An inrō modelled in imitation of an old ink cake, with three interlocking cases and cover, of rectangular cross-section and profile with integrated cord-runners, the surface finished in a mixture of charcoal dust and black lacquer, the rims with simulated chips and the six sides all with simulated cracks incised in fine kebori, sometimes revealing the base beneath, carved in relief on one side with Daruma crossing the Yangzi River on a reed and on the reverse with a 20-character inscription in archaic Chinese script (see below); copper, shakudō, and gilt ojime in the form of masks of shōjō (drunken sprite) and hyottoko (funny man); the interior gold fundame lacquer
Signed and dated on the base in incised characters Enkyō gannen natsu Ukanshi Haritsu kore o tsukuru 延享元年夏卯観子破笠作之 (Made by Ukanshi Haritsu in the summer of the first year of Enkyō [=1744]) with inlaid green pottery seal Kan 觀
9.5 × 6.7 × 2.5 cm (3¾ × 2 5/8 × 1 in.)
Fitted wooden storage box (2)
Provenance
Kumasaku Tomita Collection
Raymond Bushell Collection, purchased at Sotheby's London, 18 June 1997, lot no. 117
Published
Bushell 1979, pp. 151–2, no. 113
Kress 1994, p. 36, fig. 28
Footnotes
Heinz Kress notes that although both the Chinese printed books drawn on by Haritsu for lacquer ink-cake designs, Fangshi mopu (1588) and Chengshi moyuan (1606), include images of Daruma, transmitter of Zen to East Asia, crossing the Yangzi River (incorrectly said to be 'on his journey to Japan'), the depiction of Daruma's robes is closer to that found in Fangshi mopu. In both books the Chinese inscription, traditionally known as the 'Ode to Daruma and the True Nature 達磨真性頌', is written in standard script and placed in a circular border around Daruma so that the 20 characters can be read in either direction taking any character as the starting point, making a total of 40 different poems in all. This literary multivalency was well known in Japan, as can be seen from an illustrated book by the satirist Santō Kyōden (1761–1816) where the Fangshi mopu image is reproduced over an explanation in Chinese of the poem's semi-magical properties (Santō Kyōden, 1808). Haritsu, however, arranged the characters in four columns, effectively limiting the number of readings to two: one in vertical columns and the other in horizontal lines:
空離終至
忘性常淨
照情玅明
寂縁極圓
身理真始
These two orderings of the text might be very freely translated as follows:
Vertical:
His extreme purity and brightness is perfect from the beginning
Until the end he is a constant wonder and the ultimate truth
Taking leave of selfish feelings he connects with the universal order
His mind is void, forgetting all, enlightening his solitary body.
Horizontal:
Until the end he is unattached and void
His purity is constant, he forgets his selfish nature
Bright wondrousness illuminates his feelings
His perfect completeness arises from seclusion
From the beginning, ultimate truth orders his being.
