Imre Jakabffy (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 3. (Budapest, 1975)
FERENCZY, László: Traditions and new trends in the Japanese art of the Meiji era
masters were encouraged to do so by pretty high governmental support. It followed, probably, from the great success of Japanese lacquer-work at the Vienna exhibition and there was a lively demand for their products. Around the turn of the century Japan produced about five million pieces of lacquer ware yearly, out of which about twenty per cent was made for exports. In spite of this fact, Japanese lacquerers remained rather conservative as compared to other branches. Although there were some outstanding masters among them working along traditional or modern trends, as regards artistic standard, with the exception of the greatest personalities, they hardly could produce anything new. Good-quality traditional lacquers were represented by a scroll-formed box decorated mainly in gold and silver hiramaki-e work by Koshino Hampei of Kanazawa and an unsigned long black rö-iro-nuri surface lacquer box (fubako), made around 1880. The box is decorated with a falcon in golden takamakie (Figure 9). The adherence to the traditional inlaid style is seen at a cubeshaped box signed Tomokazu and Hamano Sôichi. On the sides and the top of the box there are small objects of various materials, rendered in relief with excellent technique: an iron tsuba with the Moon, riverside and flying birds, old Chinese coins (with a Taiping coin among them), a bronze bell, belt hook, etc. Apart from the magatama, all the ornaments were done in lacquer and their master had a marvellous sense for imitating the original materials in lacquer. A conuterpart of this box w r as part of a private collection in London. 22 Among the lacquers of modern style a fruitshaped box with the signature Toratake should be mentioned. Its lid is decorated with a plastic cicada. The old gold-lacquer technique and the modern picture-postcard 7. YOUNG GIRL WITH BASKET. POKCKLAIN. MAKUZU. ABOUT 1900. style are united in an excellent lacquer box with the pidture of the Tokugawa shrine of Nikko on it. It was among the lacquers that Miura Kenya's excellent inro of individual style was put on show. 23 In this piece the natural wooden base bears the figure of a heron carved in porcelain. The leaves of the waterside plants are of green fayence and in gold
