Japan: Courts and Culture
Telling the story of 400 years of British royal contact with Japan
Lacquer box decorated with a heron
early twentieth centuryBlack, gold and silver lacquer on wood | 23.0 x 27.5 x 33.3 cm (whole object) | RCIN 39503
A deep, rectangular document box, with flush-fitting cover, rounded corners and a domed top. In a large quatrefoil panel of lustrous black, set in the fundame ground on top that also covers the sides, a large heron standing on one leg, in silver lacquer with gold streaks among the feathers and beak, and a gold and black eye. Round the sides, linking box and cover, a black band with curving grasses in gold in reserve. The inside of the lid showing on the same gold ground an aged prunus tree in silver, with four perching and two flying black crows, and a mountain top beyond.
Text adapted from Chinese and Japanese Works of Art in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen: Volume III.
Presented to Queen Elizabeth II by Emperor Showa (Hirohito) of Japan on the occasion of her Coronation, 2 June 1953.