A natsume of uncommon material and classical intention.
🔹 [ BASIC DETAILS ] • Artist: — • Origin: Japan • Material: Aged bamboo with vermilion urushi lacquer • Motif: Pine Bamboo Plum (Shochikubai) • Era: 1920s • Box: Tomobako (artist's wooden presentation box) • Condition: Good, carefully inspected
🔹 [ Cultural & Artistic Insight ] The core is aged bamboo — a choice far less common than the standard turned wood, selected for its density and the particular way it receives lacquer. Over this foundation, layers of vermilion urushi have been built and burnished across what may be many decades, arriving at a surface that moves between deep ox-blood and transparent red depending on the angle of light.
The lid carries the Three Friends of Winter. Pine endures in horizontal strokes. Bamboo rises in quick brushed marks. A plum blossom — five petals, gathered and deliberate — anchors the lower field. All rendered in the same vermilion, slightly raised from the ground, so the motif reads as both painted and sculptural.
Shochikubai is among the oldest auspicious groupings in Japanese visual culture, associated with the new year, with weddings, with longevity and resilience. On a tea caddy, it speaks to the occasion being marked — and to the host who understood what symbols carry.
The shifuku is woven in a restrained stripe, its age visible in the tone of the silk. The wooden storage box bears a hakogaki inscription — authentication in brushwork, the box becoming document as much as container.
Condition is good. The lacquer surface shows the expected patina of age without significant damage. The fit between lid and body remains precise.
🔹 [ Deep-Dive Commentary ] Size: H approx. 6.5 cm / W approx. 9.2 cm / Weight approx. 82 g
Complete set: natsume, shifuku, and hakogaki box.
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This piece would find its proper place in a new year gathering, a celebratory tea, or a collection that values both the rarity of bamboo-core construction and the completeness of provenance.
🔹 [ SHIPPING & PACKAGING ] • Dispatch: Within 1-6 business days • Carrier: Japan Post EMS / UPS (with tracking) • Packaging: Carefully wrapped with protective materials
