橋姫蒔絵硯箱|Writing Box (Suzuribako) with “The Lady of the Bridge” Design

Unknown

18th century · Lacquered wood with gold and silver takamaki-e and hiramaki-e, and silver inlay on gold nashiji (“pear-skin”) ground · Asian Art

The exterior of this writing box shows two aristocratic ladies reading a letter on a veranda, surrounded by a garden of autumn grasses. The first two lines of a poem from the Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern (Kokin wakashū, ca. 905) are inscribed in inlaid characters on the lid’s exterior and continue on the interior, after which readers are left to complete the poem: Does she wait for me Again tonight, having spread But a single robe On her woven rush matting— The maiden at Uji Bridge? —Translation by H. C. McCullough The scene and the poem might refer to the Genji chapter “The Divine Princess at Uji Bridge” (Hashihime).

Artist

Unknown

Date

18th century

Medium

Lacquered wood with gold and silver takamaki-e and hiramaki-e, and silver inlay on gold nashiji (“pear-skin”) ground

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015