KAJIKAWA: A FINE LACQUER SUZURIBAKO (WRITING BOX) DEPICTING BOYS AT PLAYBy a member of the Kajikawa family, signed Kajikawa saku and with pot seal EiJapan, Edo (Tokyo), 19th century, Edo period (1615-1868)Of rectangular form with a flush-fitting (inrobuta) cover and silver rims. The exterior with a gyobu nashiji ground, the cover with a shaped panel bearing a mirror-black ground, finely decorated in colored takamaki-e and hiramaki-e with three karako, two of which are mischievously drawing with brushes on their sleeping companion, an inkstone and lesson book on the ground beside them.The interior of the cover with a rich gold hirame ground similarly decorated with five boys wearing elaborate patterned robes, one riding a hobby horse, three playing musical instruments, and one standing behind a tsuitate (standing screen) depicting a misty mountain landscape superbly rendered in sumi-e togidashi-e and bearing the signature and seal of the Kano painter Isen'in (Naganobu, 1775-1828).The interior bearing a nashiji ground and fitted with a nine-section board (ita) with two raised sections above and below the inkstone (suzuri), the upper section cut with a recess for the lozenge-shaped gilt-copper and silver waterdropper (suiteki), signed underneath the inkstone KAJIKAWA saku [made by Kajikawa] with a red ‘tsubo’ seal Ei.SIZE 4.6 x 21 x 23 cmCondition: Very good condition with minor wear and few small losses to lacquer.Provenance: Christie’s, 18 September 2013, New York, lot 680. The Paul and Helen Anbinder Collection, acquired from the above. Paul Anbinder (b. 1940) is a retired editor who was a director at important publishers including Random House and Hudson Hills. Helen Anbinder (1942-2022) was an education administrator who ran the Inter-village Continuing Education Program for Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Hastings, and Irvington, New York. The couple were avid museumgoers and collectors of art. They donated many books and prints from their collection to their alma mater Cornell University and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art.With a wood storage box (tomobako).The Kajikawa family were Japanese lacquerware artists whose school in Edo flourished for more than 200 years. Kyujiro is generally acknowledged as the founder of the family and the inaugurator of its traditions. He excelled in designing particularly delicate lacquer inro. Kajikawa artists also designed lacquer netsuke. Suzuribako by this school are considerably rarer than inro and netsuke.Museum comparison: Compare a lacquer suzuribako, also signed Kajikawa saku and with a red seal, in the collection of the Freer Gallery of Art in the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, accession number F1955.24a-e.Auction comparison: Compare a lacquer suzuribako, also signed Kajikawa saku and with a red pot seal, at Christie’s, 1 October 2020, New York, lot 21 (sold for 18,750 USD).