Natsume with Plovers by Shunsai II MAEHATA

A large natsume of softly rounded cylindrical form, the lid and upper body in burnished gold lacquer (kinji). Across this ground a flock of plovers (chidori) wheels in gold maki-e, each bird slightly raised, with finely lined wing feathers and a dark dot for the eye. The flight runs unbroken over the lid and across the join, one group skimming the top of the lid, another rising towards it. Towards the foot, the polished gold gradually breaks up into dense, irregular gold flakes over a dark ground. The interior and the slightly recessed base are in rich nashiji. With its tomobako, inscribed Chidori maki-e kinji onatsume, uchi nashiji (large gold-ground natsume with plovers in maki-e, nashiji interior).

MAEHATA Shunsai II was born in 1936, the eldest son of Maehata Shunsai, eighth head of a family of lacquer craftsmen in Yamanaka, Kaga, Ishikawa Prefecture. He worked in his father's workshop from childhood. From 1961 he studied tea-utensil lacquer under Murata Dokan, ishiji-nuri under Nakamura Chokan and Kaga maki-e under Hoya Bisei. In 1973 he made natsume from old timber of the main hall of Zuihoin at Daitokuji, then under restoration, and received the art name Gaho from Yoshida Keido of the temple. He presented works to Emperor Akihito and Pope John Paul II, and founded the Mugen-an foundation, whose house is a designated cultural property of Ishikawa Prefecture. In 1985 the name Shunsai passed to his son, the third generation.

Compare:


• MATSUDA Gonroku, Tea caddy with design of plovers in maki-e, 1979, Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art

• MATSUDA Gonroku, Flat natsume with plovers in maki-e, The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka

Condition: Very good; light traces of use to the centre of the lid.