Bunko or stationery box in a rectangular form with beveled corners, ornamented with a stylized design of torii gates and hills, of lacquer decorated in gold and colored takamakie or raised lacquers, the edge of the lid and beveled edges in dense nashiji or gold flake lacquer, and the interior in hotaru nashiji or firefly pattern, gold flake lacquer, the rims applied in pewter. (Oshita Sekko, the go or art name of Oshita Fujitaro, 1874 – 1960). Showa 25 or 1950.

With the tomobako or original box, inscribed on the exterior of the lid: Inari Yama Bunko or Stationery Box (Titled) Mount Inari; and on the reverse of the lid dated: Showa Niju Go Nen, Jugatsu or Showa 25 (1950), October, and signed: Kiju Sekko or Sekko at 77 Years of Age, and sealed: Sekko.

Born in Kanazawa, Oshita Sekko studied lacquer art under Matsuoka Kichibei and Hayashi Shutaro. He exhibited at the Nitten and at the Nihon Dento Kogeiten or the Japan Crafts Exhibition.

This box was made for exhibition at the Nitten in Showa 25 or 1950, and is recorded in the Nittenshi, volume 17, page 171, number 62.

Oshita Sekko fills the surface of this box with movement, constantly shifting the angle of the torii gates that dance up from the hills on the sides to extend endlessly into the heavens on the top of the box. As one’s eye moves across the surface the perspective seems to shift, adding to the stylized abstraction of the design. We are reminded again of the post-war search for meaning, an impulse that appears even in this modernist (and essentially Japanese) imagery of Shinto gates rising to heaven.