A shikishibako (poem-card box) with curved sides and slightly domed kabusebuta (overhanging lid), the substrate made in kanshitsu technique from lacquer-soaked fabric and then covered in multiple layers of colored lacquer, some of them marbled in two colors, and finished with a layer of black lacquer, subsequently carved through the layers to create an abstract floral design, the interiors plain polished lacquer, the base textured black lacquer
　
Signed in two places Aki

Comes with a wood tomobako storage box signed Akio

The important regional lacquerer Yamada Akio is a leading figure in the second generation of artists working in a highly developed style of chōshitsu decoration pioneered by his first teacher, Otomaru Kōdō (1898-1997, named a Living National Treasure in 1955). He also studied under Otomaru’s younger brother Yamashita Yōsai (1903-1988) and another important influence was Ōnishi Tadao (1918-2007). All three teachers were based like Yamada in Kagawa Prefecture (formerly Sanuki Province) on Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands.

Otomaru Kōdō is especially celebrated for his achievement in extending the expressive scope of chōshitsu, a traditional carved-lacquer technique of Chinese origin that had flourished during the Edo period (1615-1868) in Sanuki Province under the patronage of the Matsudaira family, lords of the Takamatsu domain. Devising a wider range of colors and applying more layers of lacquer than his predecessors, Otomaru created a distinctive style of abstract patterning which Yamada here emulates and develops to striking effect.

To form the gently curving, slightly domed profile of this box Yamada also used a much older technique, kanshitsu (dried lacquer), imported to Japan from Tang China during Japan’s Nara period (645-794). First seen in Buddhist statuary, this technique has enjoyed a revival among modern and contemporary Japanese lacquer artists seeking to create more fluid, organic forms than can be achieved with conventional wooden substrates. In kanshitsu, hemp cloth is soaked in urushi, the dark sticky sap of the lacquer tree (Rhus verniciflua) and worked into the desired shape before it is left in the furo, a special chamber whose atmosphere provides the temperature and humidity necessary for polymerization to take place.

In the case of this box, the kanshitsu core was then filled to eliminate the cloth grain, polished, and applied with numerous further layers of differently colored urushi, each of them left to polymerize, a process taking many days. Meticulous planning of the colored layers, followed by skillful carving, allowed Yamada to create an extraordinary abstract design that could only have originated in Kagawa Prefecture.