Decorated in gold hiramaki-e, togidashi, kirikane, sparse mura-nashiji on a black ground with kimpun, with maple leaves drifting along the Tatsuta River, the inside of the cover and box with stylised pines along the shoreline on a dense nashiji ground, lead rims
6.9 x 6.9 x 3.2 cm. (2³⁄₄ x 2³⁄₄ x 1¹⁄₄ in.)

Charles A. Greenfield Collection, no. 38.B.
Christie's, London, Fine Japanese Ceramics, Lacquer and Bronzes, 21st June 1977, Lot 81.
Christie's, New York, Japanese Art Including Property of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 28th March 2006, Lot 379.

Andrew J. Pekarik, Japanese Lacquer 1600-1900: Selections from the Charles A. Greenfield Collection, exh. cat., (New York, 1980), fig. 33, p. 36.
Eskenazi Ltd., The Charles A. Greenfield Collection of Japanese Lacquer, (London, 1990), no. 21, p. 60-61.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Japanese Lacquer 1600-1900: Selections from the Charles A. Greenfield Collection, 1980.

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Lot Essay

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