Unsigned
Japan, 18^th century, Edo period (1615-1868)

Bearing a gold and reddish-orange lacquer mokume ground framing each side, one depicting an empty chariot (jinrikisha) with a brocade cushion decorated with gold, red lacquer, and shibuichi takamaki-e and hiramaki-e. The opposite with a central basket holding young fern shoots (warabi) and a book inscribed with the words ‘Narihira Itaru’ and ‘Tokudaira Jo.’

HEIGHT 8.1 cm, LENGTH 4.8 cm

Condition: Very good condition with minor wear and a minuscule chip.
Provenance: Galerie Max, Brussels, 4 February 1956. Collection of Robert and Isabelle de Strycker, acquired from the above. Old label to the interior, ‘L, 588.’ Robert de Strycker (1903-1968) was a French engineer who specialized in metallurgy. He was a Stanford graduate, a professor at the University of Leuven, a director of the Institute of Metallurgy at the Université Catholique de Louvain, and one of the most influential members of the faculty of applied sciences. After World War II, he made large contributions to France’s post-war recovery. Robert and his wife Isabelle (1915-2010) first encountered Chinese art at the British Museum during a stay in London in the 1930s. Enamored with the style and beauty, they both decided to study and collect Japanese and Chinese works of art. In 1938 they eventually began to build their collection, buying from Belgian, Parisian, and English dealers. They kept close contact with the famous English collector Sir Harry Garner (1891-1977) and noted Czech collector and expert Fritz Low-Beer (1906-1976). In 1964, the couple lent 174 objects from their collection to the Belgian city of Leuven’s museum for an exhibition titled Oude kunst in Leuvens Privébezit (‘Old Art in Private Collections in Leuven’), and in 1967 they lent around thirty Japanese objects to the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels for their exhibition Kunst van Japan im belgischen Privatverzameingen (‘Japanese Art in Belgian Private Collections’).

The empty jinrikisha and the young fern sprouts likely refers to a poem known as the Song of the Bowmen of Shu. Translated in Ezra Pound’s book, Cathay, in the early 19^th century the poem refers to “…picking the first fern shoots and saying: ‘When shall we get back to our country?” The poem continues saying, “There is no ease in royal affairs, we have no comfort. Our sorrow is bitter, but we would not return to our country. What flower is in blossom? Whose chariot? The General’s.”