Ornamental Box with Design of Fig Leaves and Fruit

This covered box features an exterior design of ichijiku (fig leaves and fruit) over a beige kawari-nuri (lacquer) ground on the five visible sides. Tanabe Masayoshi cut and added light, loose-textured textile pieces to the base before applying the lacquer in three shades of green (dark, medium, and light green). He also highly polished, cut, and carved the luscious red fruit lacquer inlays, with gold lacquer applied to the openings of the figs, known as an ostiole. The ingenious design is both stylized and evocative of the dense fig tree. Tanabe’s studio was in the small city of Kuroe, Japan, the lacquer center of Wakayama Prefecture, just south of the Ōsaka metropolitan area. His work was exhibited at the annual Japan Arts Exhibition five times between 1949 and 1958. In 1979, Tanabe received a commendation award recognizing him as a master craftsman of Wakayama Prefecture.