Shelf for Cosmetic Boxes (Kurodana) with Wild Grapevine and Family Crest

The four-shelved kurodana was an important item in the wedding trousseau of a bride in a daimyo family of the Edo period. Made as part of a set of cabinets called the santana (three shelves), which also included a zushidana (for toilet articles) and a shodana (for writing materials), the kurodana was used to store and display cosmetic boxes and toilet articles, especially those used to blacken the teeth (haguro; see cat. nos. 45, 46). The set was the centerpiece of the functional and decorative furnishings in the living quarters of upper-class women. The kurodana is distinguished from the two other types of trousseau cabinets by its open sides, single compartment with hinged double doors on the second shelf from the bottom, level top shelf, and slightly smaller size. A prototype is shown in the fourteenth-century Zenkyōbō emaki (Illustrated Teachings of the Monk Zenkyōbō) in the Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo,[1] but the form was not standardized much before the sixteenth century.

On this kurodana grapevines sway gracefully from shelf to shelf. They are punctuated by a family crest, of the type known as kuyō (nine stars), which signified protection from evil spirits in Buddhist cosmology. Because it was used by many families as early as the twelfth century, the crest does not identify the patron who commissioned the piece. The decorative scheme, common at that time, is found on many of the prototypical lacquerware objects in the Kōdaiji style made for Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598) and installed in his mausoleum in Kyoto. The combination of motifs executed in granular and plain gold is also found in lacquer decoration of Kōdaiji. On the back of the compartment doors are a pair of leonine creatures. Common motifs on golden screens of the Momoyama and early Edo periods, these beasts are executed partially in the flat hiramaki- e technique and partially in low relief (takamaki-e). The combination of two techniques in the decoration of one object is found on some Kōdaiji lacquer associated with the Kōami artists, but practically never on the lacquer pieces made during the same period for the European market and known as nanban (cat. nos. 95, 96). The influence of the export style is evident in such features as the scroll patterns on the vertical posts supporting the shelves. These patterns, known as nanban palmettes to distinguish them from traditional Japanese palmette designs, appear frequently on objects made for Christian use and also occasionally on traditional Japanese furnishings.

[Miyeko Murase 2000, Bridge of Dreams]

[1] Suntory Museum of Art 1968, no. 4.

Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation , New York (until 2015; donated to MMA)

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Nagoya City Art Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," August 17, 1985–September 23, 1985.

Atami. MOA Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," September 29, 1985–October 27, 1985.

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New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Kyoto: Capital of Artistic Imagination," July 24, 2019–January 31, 2021.

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Murase, Miyeko, Il Kim, Shi-yee Liu, Gratia W. Nakahashi, Stephanie Wada, Soyoung Lee, and David Ake Sensabaugh. Art Through a Lifetime: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection. Vol. 2, Japanese Objects, Korean Art, Chinese Art. [New York]: Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, [2013], p. 124, cat. no. 782.