I’ve easily watched over 200 Japanese movies, old and new, and I’ve gotten into the habit of not only listening to the dialogue for language nuances, but also watching for cultural, architectural, and furnishing concepts. Last night I was watching Fight, Zatoichi, Fight and I saw an Inro in use for I think the first time (I might have just never noticed it before). What does that mean? A new post of course, and I think I found a very nice example to write about.

First I must say I dont know a whole lot about these objects, but they are probably the most well know type of sagemono (hanging objects) that were suspended from the obi. Kimono do not have pockets, so the only way people had to carry things around was by hanging them from their sash. The literal meaning of inro is seal container and the original design was basically a small box that held the Hanko (personal seal) and some type of inkpad. Later additional layers of boxes were added to hold anything else wanted to be carried. The boxes were strung together with silkin cord that ran through a Himotoshi (channel or aperture), tightened up with an Ojime (moveable bead) and hung from the obi with a Netsuke (sculptural object or toggle) to secure it.

This piece is a fine example of taka-maki-e (raised maki-e), where the design is built up of layers of lacquer mixed with metallic powders, in this case, cranes flying amidst the clouds. The inner sleeve area has nashiji-nuri (peach skin lacquer) where a base layer of lacquer is sprinkled with nashiji-ko (metallic flakes) and then coated again with lacquer. After that, it is polished to expose the flakes which give it that sparkly appearance. The ojime is a human skull made out of what looks like ivory, which is highly possible because this is from the late 1700’s, and the netsuke is made out of Edo glass.

This piece seems to have some provenance. Signed by the artist Kajikawa, purportedly used by a chief retainer of a Hirosaki daimyo, and due to the fact that you rarely find all three of the parts remaining together, it’s no doubt a museum quality piece and can command its high price tag of $10,000. Im starting to think I need to open my own museum so I could buy this kind of stuff; benefactors needed!

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