Accessories
Box: Paulownia wood with white lacquer Inscription: Written by Aoki Shushusai and Hirase Roka
Recorded in
Senke Meibutsu-ki
Dimensions
Height: 3.6 cm
Mouth diameter: 5.0 cm
Body diameter: 6.0 cm
Weight: 45 g
Kamakura Period Makie Lacquerware, Autumn Grasses Design Tin-rimmed Square Kōgō (Incense Container). This piece is the same work as the round kōgō recorded in the Senke Meibutsu-ki. It features autumn grasses painted using blue mother-of-pearl, with the underside of the lid and the interior of the body also adorned with autumn grasses and butterflies.
The tasteful tin rim is also well-preserved, indicating it was passed down by a connoisseur.
The box inscription by Enshū-ryū Aoki Shūshū-sai of Osaka reads ‘Autumn Field’ (Aki no), with an accompanying note by Hirase Rōkō.
This type of incense container seems to have become popular among tea practitioners around the Kan’ei era. Notable appraisers and collectors of the time, mentioned in the Senke Meibutsu-ki, include Kusumi Sōan and Jōyū Iehara Jikō.
In Inagaki Kyuso’s Chado Sentei, it is also recorded that small boxes were removed from the hand-carved boxes used by the Kamakura nun-shogun (Masako), and items like “square, long square, large and small, mirror nest (with chrysanthemums on a fence, and maple leaf patterns)” appeared on the market and passed into the hands of collectors.
