Kajikawa Akihide: Four-Case Gold Lacquer Inro

Of upright rectangular form and oval section, bearing a rich kinji ground finely decorated in gold, black, and red takamaki-e and minutely executed hiramaki-e embellished with kinpun, kirigane, and e-nashiji.

The interior cases of nashiji with gold fundame rims. Signed underneath in gold KAJIKAWA AKIHIDE with a red pot seal. With a dark horn ojime. The subject may be an allusion to the foolishness of a Chinese emperor of the 2nd century AD who according to legend drafted a decree that a horse should be called a stag and a stag a horse. Kajikawa Akihide was a member of the Kajikawa family, one of the most celebrated dynasty of Japanese lacquer artists.

Traditionally founded by Hikobei in Edo in the early seventeenth century, the atelier’s fame was further secured by his son and pupil Kyujiro, whom Soken Kisho described as “the finest inro maker of past or present.” The Kajikawa served the shogunate for generations, their signatures often limited to the family name, occasionally accompanied by a red pot seal.