A THREE-CASE LACQUER INRO DEPICTING A MOUNTAIN VIEW

Unsigned
Japan, Edo period (1615-1868)

Of upright rectangular form, with a brown ground decorated in polychrome takamaki-e and hiramaki-e, accented with a few kirigane flakes. Depicting a continuous mountain landscape extends across both sides: one side features a small hut nestled beneath a pine tree, while the reverse shows the silhouette of a peasant standing beneath a bare tree. The interior is finished in dark brown lacquer.

With a metal ojime.

LENGTH 5 cm, HEIGHT 8.1 cm

Condition: With wear consistent with age and use, including few tiny chips to the rims and some minor notches and shallow cracks to the lacquer on the upper side. Overall presenting well.
Provenance: Galerie Tamenne, 29 November 1967, Brussels. Collection of Robert and Isabelle de Strycker, acquired from the above. Beaussant-Lefevre, Robert and Isabelle de Strycker Collection – Japanese Prints Arts of China and Japan, 5 April 2023, Paris, lot 366. 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 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’).