Lot 134: A SUZURIBAKO [WRITING BOX]

Painted by Kobayashi Kokei (1883-1957), Showa Period (Mid-20th Century) Of rounded rectangular form, the plain wood surfaces painted on the outside of the lid with a large half moon in silver, the reverse of the lid and part of the base of the box with heads of susuki [pampas grass] in gold and silver, fitted with a removable tray, suzuri [inkstone] with gold-lacquered rim, kidney-shaped silver suiteki [water-dropper] with engraved decoration, two brushes, a skewer and a knife, the rims silver, signed in gold paint on the reverse of the lid Kokei 13/4 x 8 7/8 x 10in. (4.4 x 21.9 x 25.4cm.) NOTES One of the leading Nihonga [Japanese-style] painters of the mid-twentieth century, Kobayashi Kokei was appointed Bunka Korosha [Member of the Order of Cultural Merit] in 1950. One of the second generation of artists influenced by the nativist theoretician Okakura Tenshin, he re-interpreted Japanese style painting in a spare, somewhat modernist idiom, as here (see Ellen P. Conant, Nihonga, Transcending the Past: Japanese-Style Painting, 1868-1968 (St. Louis, 1995), p. 310. In decorating a writing box, Kobayashi was following in a tradition established in the seventeenth century by artists such as Hon'ami Koetsu and Ogata Korin who were known both as painters and as decorators of items for everyday use.