SIGNED ZESHIN (SHIBATA ZESHIN; 1807-1891) AND TAISHIN (IKEDA TAISHIN; 1825-1903), MEIJI PERIOD

This is the collaborative work of two important lacquer artists from Meiji periods, Shibata Zeshin and Ikeda Taishin.
Zeshin (1807-1891) was one of the elite group of craftsmen schooled in the fashions of the Edo period who made the great leap from the dictates of the feudal society into the Age of Enlightenment and Westernization in Japan in the Meiji era (1868 -1912). He was apprenticed at the age of eleven to the great inro artist Koma Kansai II (1767-1835) from whom he learned the traditional techniques of makie. In 1891 Zeshin was appointed a Teishitsu Gigei-In [Imperial Artist], and became a professor of the University of Fine Arts in Tokyo together with his fellow Imperial Artist Kano Natsuo (1828-1898).
Taishin was born in Edo and became Shibata Zeshin’s first lacquer apprentice, aged eleven in 1835. He became an independent artist around 1870, approximately 25 years later. Together with Kawanobe Itcho (Genjiro; 1830-1910), Taishin was appointed an Artist to the Imperial Household (Teishitsu gigeiin) in 1896.

For a Zeshin's inro with similar design, see Shibata Zeshin: From Lacquer Arts To painting (Tokyo: Nezu Museum , 2012), no. 78.