Ogawa Shomin (1847-1891)A fine lacquer kakesuzuribako (stacking writing box and stationery box)Meiji era (1868-1912), circa 1878The two-tier rectangular box with rounded corners and flush-fitting cover, the lower stationery box supporting the writing box, decorated overall in several shades of gold hiramaki-e, takamaki-e and nashiji, with embellishments of kirikane, and inlaid in gold and mother-of-pearl on a roiro-nuri and kinpun ground, the cover with scattered bundles of brushwood among cherry-blossom petals beneath pine and blossoming cherry trees on distant hills shrouded in clouds, and a poem in hiragana syllables, the underside of the cover with tomoe (whorls), seaweed, and scattered pine needles, the top tier fitted with a removable frame fitted with an inkstone and silver water dropper cast as a conjoined tomoe, the sides of the box with a bridge above stylized waves beneath clouds and applied with shakudo boats carrying brushwood, the interior decorated in cut gold foil and mura-nashiji with tomoe, seaweed and needle-like pieces of kirikane, the rims silver, signed on the underside Shomin saku (Made by Shomin)With a wood tomobako storage box inscribed on the cover Suzuribako, Jakuren Hoshi kai (Writing box with poem by Priest Jakuren) and with paper labels Otanakazari (Display item) Meiji juichinen rokugatsu Bijutsu Tenrankai goyohin (Imperial piece, shown at the Art Exhibition, June 1888) and signed on the underside of the cover Shinshin Shomin tsukuru (Made by Shinshin Shomin) and sealed Shomin no in; inscribed on a paper label on the underside of the cover Meiji Tenno ibutsu (Bequest of the Meiji Emperor), Taisho gannen junigatsu sanjuichinichi hairyo (Received December 31, 1912) and sealed on a paper label Taisho gannen sentei ibutsu no sho (Seal of the late Emperor's bequests, 1912) 7 3/8 x 6 7/8 x 3 9/16in (18.8 x 17.5 x 9cm)注脚ProvenanceEmperor MeijiPreviously sold, Christie's, New York, September 17, 1997, lot 222PublishedStephen Little and Edmund J. Lewis, View of the Pinnacle: Japanese Lacquer Writing Boxes: The Lewis Collection of Suzuribako, Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2011, cat. no. 74One of the half-dozen leading lacquerers of the Meiji era, the short-lived Ogawa Shomin was apprenticed at the age of 16 to the lacquer artist Nakayama Komin (1808-1870, see also lot 563) and became an independent artist in 1868, making his international debut with a piece at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, as well as showing frequently at government-sponsored exhibitions within Japan. During the 1880s he became increasingly involved in the creation of meticulous reproductions of early Japanese lacquer and in 1890, the year before his death, he was named first director of the Lacquer Department at Tokyo Art School. Had he lived longer, Shomin would undoubtedly have been elevated to the prestigious order of Teishitsu Gigeiin (Artist-Craftsman to the Imperial Household), the precursor of today's Ningen Kokuho (Living National Treasure).