Maki-e Lacquer Hira-Natsume by Kiyose Ikkō — Fan Shiogama Motif Kin-Sunago Interior

Experience Authentic Japan Art with this Maki-e Tea Caddy. This Japanese Lacquerware serves as a Chanoyu Tea Ceremony Object and Collector's Lacquer Art piece, featuring Kyoto Maki-e Craftsmanship and Hira Natsume Form—a must-have for any Art Collector interested in Gold Lacquer Tea Ware, Japanese Tea Ceremony Antiques, or Signed Lacquerware with Tomobako.

🔹 [ BASIC DETAILS ]

Artist: Kiyose Ikkō (清瀬一光)
Technique: Maki-e (gold lacquer painting) on black urushi ground; kin-sunago (fine gold dust) interior
Era: Late Shōwa to Heisei — a mid-career work from a Kyoto maki-e specialist
Origin: Kyoto, Japan
Dimensions: Height approx. 5.5 cm, Width approx. 8.5 cm
Box: Signed paulownia tomobako, brushed inscription — "扇塩釜蒔絵 平棗 一光" — with artist's red seal
Condition: Excellent. Lacquer surface retains full depth and sheen; no losses, chips, or repairs visible

🔹 [ CULTURAL & ARTISTIC INSIGHT ]

The hira-natsume — the flat, wide-lidded tea caddy — holds a particular place in usucha (thin tea) ceremony. Its low profile settles quietly on the tatami, offering the lid as a canvas. Kiyose Ikkō understood this: the entire upper face of this piece is given over to a single open sensu (folding fan), its ribs radiating from the lower edge in bright gold, the fan's interior field filled with a Shiogama coastal scene — gnarled pines on promontory, sea haze implied in the graduated ground.

Shiogama, on the Miyagi coast, is a classical utamakura — a poetic place whose name resonates through waka and renga across a thousand years. Salt-fire smoke, pine silhouettes, the sound of tide: these images were already ancient when the Heian poets wrote them. Ikkō recasts that inheritance in urushi and gold, the sensu frame acting as a window — or a stage — through which the landscape is glimpsed rather than declared.

The interior is lined with kin-sunago, fine gold dust fixed into the lacquer ground, creating a warm, granular luminosity when the lid is lifted. This contrast — precise pictorial maki-e above, diffuse gold atmosphere within — is the piece's governing tension. The outside addresses the world of poetry and place; the inside addresses only the matcha it will hold.

Gold dust scattered in lacquer: a kind of silence that catches the light.

🔹 [ DEEP-DIVE COMMENTARY ]

The natsume takes its name from the jujube fruit, whose rounded form the caddy echoes. Within chanoyu, the natsume is the standard container for usucha — thin tea prepared with a lighter ratio of matcha to water, served in informal or semi-formal settings. The hira-natsume (flat natsume) is a variant distinguished by its wider, lower profile: the diameter exceeds the height, and the lid's curvature is gentler, giving the decorator proportionally more surface to work with.

Maki-e as a technique encompasses several distinct processes, often layered in a single piece. In shitamaki (underpainting), the design is first laid down in lacquer as a raised foundation. Nakamaki (intermediate application) builds volume and refines edges. Uwamaki (top coat) fixes the final gold or silver powders, while togidashi maki-e — where the surface is polished back to reveal the design flush with the lacquer ground — creates the characteristic matte-satin quality visible in the Shiogama pines on this natsume. The fan ribs, by contrast, are left as raised hiramaki-e lines, giving them structural presence against the flat picture ground.

Kiyose Ikkō worked within the Kyoto maki-e tradition, a lineage that prizes pictorial refinement and the integration of classical literary themes into functional tea objects. Kyoto maki-e differs from Wajima or Kamakura work in its emphasis on narrative image over abstract pattern — the object is expected to carry cultural memory as well as matcha.

Shiogama as a motif carries specific weight. The Shiogama Shrine, the pine-covered coast, the salt-boiling imagery associated with the place — all appear in the Manyoshu, the Kokinshū, and the Hyakunin Isshu. For a tea practitioner, encountering this image on a natsume is an act of recognition: the landscape is not decorative, it is a reference. The sensu frame intensifies this: the fan in Japanese aesthetics is both a physical object and a concentrating device, a way of framing and presenting something within ceremony.

For collectors, mid-career Kyoto maki-e lacquerware of this quality — signed, boxed, in excellent condition — represents a category where craftsmanship density remains accessible relative to National Living Treasure-level work, while still embodying the full technical and cultural vocabulary of the tradition.

[ 日本語解説 ]

作者：清瀬一光（京蒔絵師）
技法：黒漆地金蒔絵（扇塩釜蒔絵）／内金砂子
制作年代：昭和後期〜平成期（中堅期の作）
産地：京都
サイズ：高さ約5.5cm、幅約8.5cm
箱：共箱（箱書「扇塩釜蒔絵 平棗 一光」、印あり）
状態：美品。漆面の艶・深みとも健在。欠けや補修の痕跡なし。

平棗は薄茶器の一形式で、高さよりも径が勝る扁平な形状が特徴です。蓋の面積が広く取れるため、絵師にとっては一幅の画面として機能します。本作では蓋面いっぱいに大きな金蒔絵の扇が広げられ、その扇面の内に塩釜の風景——磯松、海霞、古歌が染み込んだ場所——が精緻に描き込まれています。

塩釜は歌枕として知られる地です。万葉集以来、塩焼く煙と松原の取り合わせは、日本詩歌における「距離と懐かしさ」の象徴として繰り返し詠まれてきました。一光はその記憶を漆と金で再び呼び起こし、扇という「枠」によって風景を「見せる」のではなく「差し出す」構成を選んでいます。

技法面では、松の描写に研ぎ出し蒔絵の要素が見られ、塗り重ねた漆を研ぎ戻すことで生まれるマットな金の質感が、ハイライトとして機能しています。扇の骨は平蒔絵の細線で表わされ、地の黒漆に対して立体感を与えています。

内側の金砂子は、細かな金粉を漆に定着させた仕上げで、蓋を開けるたびに温かみのある粒状の輝きが広がります。外の絵画性と内の無名の光——その対比が、本作の静かな核心です。

共箱の箱書と印は作者本人によるもので、真作としての確度を高めています。京蒔絵の技術的語彙を持ちながら、茶道具としての佇まいを損なわない一作です。

🔹 [ SHIPPING & PACKAGING ]
• Dispatch: Within 1-6 business days
• Carrier: Japan Post EMS / UPS (with tracking)
• Packaging: Carefully wrapped with protective materials