Late Meiji/Taisho period, 1900-1920.
Gold and coloured makie with metal and shell inlays. Silver edge bindings.
30.5 x 24.5 x 10.7 (h) cm.
Capturing the autumnal splendour of the maple tree’s colour and its fleeting journey to leaf-fall is a recurrent image in Japanese art. As with Spring’s cherry blossom it marks the impermanence of all things, contrasting the optimism of Spring with the traditional melancholy of autumn as the seasons move towards winter hardship.
The anonymous artist of this work depicts the scene in a rich combination of makie and inlays set against an earthy brown lacquer ground that ripples on a cloth base layer. The interior is finished in a high gloss, black roiro lacquer. The reference is to water since against this ground, on the underside of the lid, we see the foaming rapids of a golden rinpa-style stream signifying the sweeping away of the annual leaf-fall to the sea.