Flower arranging basket woven of split dark red-brown smoked bamboo in a tall cylindrical form with a bent branch bamboo handle. Signed on the reverse with an incised signature by the artist: Chikuunsai Kore wo Tsukuru or Made by Chikuunsai (Tanabe Chikuunsai I, 1877 – 1937). Late Taisho – early Showa era, circa 1925 – 1935.

With the tomobako or original box, inscribed on the exterior of the lid: Kin-mei Chiku Hana Kago, Naga Iki or Golden Bamboo Flower Basket, (titled) Long Life; and on the reverse of the lid: Sakai Fu Nanso, Chikuunsai Kore wo Tsukuru or Sakai City, A House Facing South, Made by Chikuunsai, and sealed twice: Tanabe Chikuun, and below: Chikuunsai.

Chikuunsai employed very simple weaving techniques: a loosened version of square plaiting in the body with strong diagonal simple wrapping (bo-maki) at the foot and mouth. The irregularity of the weave includes long sections of bamboo run diagonally through the upper body. Contrasting with the informal geometry of the weaving, the handle twists with all the elegance of natural branch bamboo across the top, one smaller branch splitting into a finger branch the curls down across the face of the basket.

With the original tsutsu or water container for the interior of the basket, cut from a long, narrow cylinder of bamboo, the exterior surface cut away and faceted, then lacquered a deep red-brown; the interior lined with hammered copper.

Chikuunsai uses bamboo with deep, extraordinary color for this piece. The handle branches powerfully over the top, contrasting with the weaving in an idiom he made famous in the first decades of the 20th century.