Studio: international art (22.1901)

Japanese Tobacco Boxes.

now, how it has been transformed into a
tobacco box. In the first place a lid
has been fashioned for it, which is kept
in its place and tightly closed by cord
fastened to the back of the lid and passed
through two holes made in the side of
the box. This object, like most others
of the same class, is intended to be worn
suspended from the sash or girdle of the
smoker, and the cord which passes from
the lid through the side of the box, and
which terminates in a button or netsuke,
fig. 4 skin of animal ^ js means by which the box is so

suspended. In shaping the lid to cover
the box, care has been taken to cut it so
that it shall exactly fit the broken remains
of the iron rim. Many artificers would
have taken away this small piece of broken
metal as useless, or in order to avoid the
trouble caused in cutting the lid to fit it.
Not so the Japanese, who recognised that
every such evidence of the original pur-
pose of the box must be carefully pre-
served. Where the lacquer was worn away
from the sides of the box and the wood
was laid bare, some little incrustations of
amber, bone, and metal were applied
so as to give it additional interest
and to proclaim it a prized object. All
traces of antiquity are carefully preserved;
and while the lid and modern incrusta-
tions are entirely harmonious with the box
and not too obtrusive, they are frankly
modern, and show no false affectation
of antiquity.

of personal thought and ingenuity which give Another instance may be taken to

to them an interest and charm altogether beyond
the modern " trade " productions. While it is
evident, from the examination of a large number
of these articles, that craftsmen of considerable
artistic ability turned their attention to their
make, it by no means follows that objects
possessing the greatest technical excellence are
best worth the attention of collectors.
Tobacco boxes were made with little or no
attempt at fine workmanship or ornamentation.
Originally the lower part of the box shown in
Fig. i was a rice measure of a shape long
since obsolete in Japan. The old Government
marks are still shown inside the box, and also
upon one or two portions of the outside. It has
evidently had much wear and hard usage, but a
portion of the metal rim which once capped the
upper edge of the box still remains. Observe, fig. 6 bark of tree

88

fig. 5 mother o pearl shell

H.PC