MADE BY DŌMOTO INSHŌ (1891-1975) AND DŌMOTO GOSABURŌ (SHIKKEN, 1889-1964)
With rounded corners, slightly domed lid, and with silver rims. Decorated with painted lacquer of varying type of a fruiting grape vine in gold lacquer. The interior with gold hirame against a black-lacquer ground. Signed on one side in silver hiramaki-e characters Taishō jūsannen natsu Gosaburō saku (Made by Gosaburō in summer 1924)
With a fitted wood storage box bearing a paper label Dōmoto Inshō shita-e Gosaburō gassaku budō maki-e tebako (Box for Personal Accessories with Lacquer Design of Grapes, a Joint Work of Dōmoto Inshō as Designer and [Dōmoto] Gosaburō [as Lacquerer]). The interior of the box with a signed inscription recording the Dōmoto brothers’ collaboration in the creation of this tebako.
Size : 7 ⅛ x 12 ⅛ x 9 ⅝ inches
(18.1 x 30.8 x 24.5 cm.)
Ex: Private American Collection
This box presents an unusual documented collaboration between the prolific and versatile Dōmoto Inshō, one of the titans of twentieth-century Japanese painting, and his elder brother, the similarly versatile lacquer artist Dōmoto Gosaburō (later known as Shikken, “House of Lacquer”), and dates from the start of both men’s careers. See: Jan Dees, Breaking out of Tradition: Japanese Lacquer 1890-1950, exhibition catalogue, Münster, Museum für Lackkunst, 2020, cat. nos. 16, 24, 40.