By Kakosai Shozan, signed Kakosai 可交斎
Japan, Edo (Tokyo), early 19^th century, Edo period (1615-1868)

Of upright lenticular form and oval section, bearing a beautifully polished and lustrous gold kinji ground, finely decorated in gold hiramaki-e and takamaki-e, as well as inlays of mother-of-pearl, to depict three rats nibbling at sprinkled rice grains beside two large bales. The rats and rice bales are associated with the God of Wealth Daikoku. Signed to the underside KAKOSAI (Kakosai Shozan). The interior compartments of nashiji with gold fundame rims. With a gilt-wood ojime.

HEIGHT 10 cm, LENGTH 6.2 cm

Condition: Good condition with minor surface wear and minuscule nibbling to the edges of the risers. The tail of the single rat with a restored section.
Provenance: Sotheby’s, Japanese and Korean Works of Art, 9 June 2004, London, lot 1056. Ex-collection Alan and Simone Hartman, acquired from the above. Hartman was born on 9 January 1930, the son of Hazel and Urban Hartman. Urban Hartman opened a shop dealing in Oriental art on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in 1927 and Hartman Rare Art was incorporated in 1945. Alan grew up surrounded by works of art; he purchased his first jade when he was a child – he was 12 – and from that moment until his passing, he continued to acquire antiques and works of art. For a while Alan worked with his brother, Roland, and when they split, he made the decision to run the business on his own. Hence the name Rare Art was to endure, and Alan owned substantial galleries on Madison Avenue in New York and at one point stores in Dallas and Palm Beach. Anyone who visited his New York stores will remember that it was easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer breadth of the stock – including Chinese from Neolithic to the 20th century, Japanese, silver, and jades and hardstones from all over the world. Privately, however, Alan and his second wife, the love of his life, Simone, purchased special pieces for their homes – fine Japanese works of art and objets de vertu, Impressionist paintings, magnificent jades, the best Tang and Ming ceramics, archaic Chinese bronzes, gold boxes, and an important collection of Huguenot silver. Parts of his collection have been donated to the Alan and Simone Hartman Galleries in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Brooklyn Museum, and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

Kakosai Shozan was a lacquerer who worked in Edo in the early 19^th century. He was influenced by Kajikawa and may have learnt the art in the Kajikawa family workshop before he went independent. Shozan’s inro are typically lenticular and are often embellished with fine inlays, such as on the present piece. See Earle, Joe [ed.] (1995) The Index of Inro Artists, p. 258, where the artist is described as “a prolific inro decorator”.

Auction comparison:
Compare a related gold lacquer four-case inro, by Kakosai Shozan, signed Kakosai, at Bonhams, Fine Japanese Art, 6 November 2012, London, lot 97 (sold for GBP 15,000).