24 - KOGYOKUSAI: A FOUR-CASE INLAID GOLD LACQUER ‘NABE KABURI’ INRO

KOGYOKUSAI: A FOUR-CASE INLAID GOLD LACQUER ‘NABE KABURI’ INRO By Kogyokusai, signed Kogyokusai 光玉齋 with kakihan Japan, 19th century Of rounded form, bearing a luminous kinji ground subtly enriched with e-nashiji, finely decorated in gold and iro-e takamaki-e and hiramaki-e, and embellished with gold kirigane. Depicted are three elegantly robed women participating in the celebrated nabe-kaburi festival, each balancing iron cooking pots upon her head, the vessels boldly inlaid in dark horn and the faces and hands delicately inlaid in stained bone. The continuous landscape is completed by distant low mountains on one side and the roofs of a wooden pavilion on the reverse, obscured by thick takamaki clouds embellished with kirigane flakes. The interior cases are finished in fine nashiji with gold fundame rims. Signed to the underside in gold lacquer KOGYOKUSAI with kakihan. HEIGHT 8.1 cm, LENGTH 5.3 cm Provenance: From the collection of Mrs. Frederica (Freda) Cook (1856-1925), and thence by descent. Freda Cook entered one of Britain’s most distinguished collecting families through her marriage in 1887 to Wyndham Francis Cook, younger son of Sir Francis Cook, 1st Baronet and Viscount of Monserrate (1817-1901). A wealthy textile magnate and one of the great art collectors of the 19th century, Sir Francis assembled an exceptional collection of Old Master paintings at Doughty House, Richmond, including works by Jan van Eyck, Velázquez, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, and Rembrandt. He also created a Japanese garden at his Portuguese estate of Monserrate, reflecting the family’s broad cosmopolitan interests. Among his acquisitions was the Salvator Mundi, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which he purchased in 1900 and which later achieved USD 450.3 million at Christie’s New York in 2017, establishing the world record for the highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction. Following her husband’s death in 1905, Freda inherited a considerable fortune and continued to collect works of art, including Japanese art and netsuke. Her extraordinary handwritten will, completed in 1925, comprises 95,940 words across 1,066 pages and four volumes and remains recognized by Guinness World Records as the longest will ever written. Condition: Excellent condition, with only minor wear and only very few typical, minuscule losses to the kirigane flakes. The curious subject is the celebrated nabe-kaburi, or “pot-crown,” festival of Tsukuma Shrine in Omi Province, present-day Shiga Prefecture. The custom was already famous by the Heian period and is mentioned in the Ise monogatari. According to a long-standing popular interpretation, women wore on their heads a number of cooking pots corresponding to the number of men with whom they had had relations, with humorous literature adding that divine punishment awaited anyone who falsified the count. Kogyukusai is listed in Edward A. Wrangham and Joe Earl (eds.), The Index of Inro Artists, 1995, p. 137. Auction comparison: Compare a closely related four-case inlaid gold lacquer inro depicting performers in the play Okina, by Kogyokusai, 8.5 cm high, at Bonhams, Fine Japanese Works of Art from the Edward Wrangham Collection, 9 July 2018, London, lot 112 (sold for GBP 2,125 or approx. EUR 3,300 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing).