EDO PERIOD (18TH CENTURY)

Autumn maple leaves drifting along the Tatsuta River has been an enduring theme in classical Japanese poetry. Lacquerware decorated with stylised motifs based on such poems mark a stylistic transition in eighteeth century lacquer design, with a reduction of poetic signifiers into their most formal elements treating these classical subjects into something akin to textile design. An example of a poem on maples leaves on the Tatsuta River composed by Sakanoue Korenori has been translated by Helen Craig McCullough in Kokin Wakashu: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry (Stanford, 1985), p. 74:

Were it not that leaves
of many hues float downstream,
who would be aware
of the coming of autumn
to the Tatsuta River?

Momijiba no
nagarezari seba
Tatsutagawa
mizu no aki o ba
tare ka shiramashi