Hara Yōyūsai 原羊遊斎 (1772–1845/6) SUZURIBAKO (WRITING BOX) WITH CRANES 鶴図蒔絵硯箱 Edo period (1615–1868), early 19th century
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Find your local specialistHara Yōyūsai 原羊遊斎 (1772–1845/6) SUZURIBAKO (WRITING BOX) WITH CRANES 鶴図蒔絵硯箱
A suzuribako with kabusebuta (overhanging lid) and kakego (inner tray), of rectangular form with rounded corners, the edges finished in dull gold lacquer, the brown-black ground with a somewhat wrinkled texture emulating the look of old lacquer, the outside of the lid with three cranes in Rinpa style, executed in gold maki-e, sheet lead, and shell, the reverse of the lid with a flowering branch of tsubaki (Camellia japonica), inscribed in red lacquer in seal form Hokkyō Kōrin 法橋光琳, the kakego with a removable board inset with a hexagonal suzuri (ink stone) and gilt-metal suiteki (water-dropper), hexagonal two-tier gilt-metal cord fittings
Signed on the kakego in gold hiramaki-e at lower left Yōyūsai 羊遊斎, with a red-lacquer kaō
9.6 × 15.3 × 26 cm (3¾ × 6 × 10¼ in.)
Fitted wooden storage box with red seal of the Sudō 須藤 Collection (6)
Exhibited and Published
Gotō Bijutsukan 199, cat. no. 16
Footnotes
The prominent Edo artist Hara Yōyūsai, official lacquerer to the Doi clan, lords of the Koga domain, produced many lacquers in the pictorial style, later known as Rinpa, that was founded by Hon'ami Kōetsu (1558–1637) and continued and developed by Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716). Here Yōyūsai combines a group of cranes on the outside of the box—a favourite painting subject of Kōrin's perhaps best known from a pair of six-panel screens in the Freer Gallery of Art—with a branch of camellia inside the lid. Although Yōyūsai added a version of Kōrin's seal to the camellia, the flower is rendered in a style that seems closer to that of Sakai Hōitsu (1761–1828), Yōyūsai's frequent collaborator, who revived the Rinpa style at the start of the nineteenth century and imparted it with greater naturalism (McKelway 2012, cat. nos. 19 and 22–25).
