Suzuri-bako or writing box in a rectangular form with softly-rounded edges, ornamented on the lid with three modernist boulders. Of roiro or mirror-polished, black lacquer decorated in colored, gold and silver taka-maki-e or raised lacquers; the interior in tan, titanium-pigmented lacquer ornamented on the reverse of the lid with stylized rippling waves in silver togidashi, the water spray in very fine silver nashiji; the reverse of the box in red lacquer with very fine, silver nashiji flake lacquers; the interior water dropper and ink stand of silver, the ink stone of black lacquer. With the four original, black lacquered brushes. Signed beneath the interior tray on the interior of the box in red raised lacquer by the artist: Shunka Saku or Made by Shunka (Honma Shunka, 1894 – 1991). Showa 33 or 1958.

With the tomobako or original box, inscribed on the exterior of the lid: Kajikagawa Kanshitsu Suzuri-bako or Kajikagawa (Frog River Rock Motif) Dry Lacquer Writing Box; and on the reverse of the lid signed: Shunka Saku or Made by Shunka, and sealed: Honma Shunka. With the original white silk protective pillow for the interior, sealed in red by the artist.

Also included in the box is the original exhibition postcard with the photograph of this box, bearing an inscription on the reverse: Nihon Dento Kogeiten Dai Go-kai, Kansai-in Shuppin, Showa San-ju-san-nen, Jugatsu or The Fifth Japan Traditional Craft Exhibition, Made for Exhibition by a Judge of the Exhibition, Showa (era) 33rd Year (1958), (in) October; and signed: Honma Shunka, and titled: Kajikagawa Suzuribako, (Kanshitsu) or Kajikagawa (Frog River Rock Motif) Writing Box ([of] Dry Lacquer).

With the original plan for the box, drawn by the artist, in pencil, sumi ink and color on washi paper.

Honma Shunka’s 1964 Nitten exhibition box is in the collection of The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, which also has a 1966 lacquer tray and 1969 lacquer tray by the artist.

Honma Shunka paints a modernist scene in lacquers, depicting a famous rock in Hozugawa section of the Katsura River in Kyoto Prefecture. Kajikagawa were frogs noted for living in very clean rivers. One particular rock in the Hozugawa became known as the Kajikagawa Iwa or Rock, likely because these frogs were seen to like sunning themselves on the rock and because it was thought to resemble a frog. That frogs were drawn to a rock that resembled them no doubt amused the Japanese.

Shunka frames the rocks in negative space, floating in a mirror of black. Angular, almost abstract, they resemble the rocks in a dry garden, focused and isolated while relating spatially to each other in a perfectly balanced asymmetry. The intense coloration surprises, breaking with the conventions of traditional lacquers and reinforcing our sense of stylized modernity.