Writing Box with the Poet KAKINOMOTO no Hitomaro
- Date
-
制作年 Edo period(17th century)
- Title
- カキノモトノヒトマロマキエスズリバコ
- Measurements
- 22.1×21.0×4.6
- Materials, techniques and shape
- Lacquered wood with maki-e
- Collections
- Century Akao Collection
- Depository
- Keio Museum Commons Campus Mita
- Ref. number
- AW-CEN-000296-0000
- License
- CC BY Images license
- Creditline
-
慶應義塾（センチュリー赤尾コレクション）
- URL
- Classification
- Art
- AI Tagging
- Brown Rectangle Gold Wood Camera lens
The design of this writing box is based on a waka poem from the poems about travel in volume 9 of the Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern (Kokin wakashū) attributed to KAKINOMOTO no Hitomaro (dates unknown). The poem reads: "In the first light of dawn / my thoughts follow a small boat / that goes hidden by the isle / through the morning fog and mist / at Akashi Bay.” The plovers of the design are particularly lovely. The various motifs are expressed with raised gold maki-e (sprinkled metal) lacquer, and the moss is depicted with cut metal shapes pasted together, a technique known as kirikane. Several centuries after Hitomaro passed away, he was worshipped as a deity of poetry. At poetry gatherings, the waka poem that inspired the design of this box was displayed with Hitomaro’s portrait to compose good poetry. In the Edo period, when this writing box was made, poetry played a more important role in people’s lives than today. By using a motif of the venerated poet, devotees called upon the blessing of the revered poet.
On the inside of the box, there are inscriptions in gold. On the brush holder is written: “picture of reed” and on the back of the lid there is a waka poem that reads: Reed at the peak / of Mount Takama at Katsuragi / Will I only end up looking at it / as something from afar / which has nothing to do with me?
The poem is similar to one found among the love poems of volume 11 of the New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern (Shinkokin wakashū), although the poem in that collection does not mention reed, but white clouds at the peak of Mount Takama.
Description from the exhibition Catalogue "Letter-scape: Century Akao Collection, A World of Letters and Figures", Keio Museum Commons, April 2021
The poet depicted on the cover of this inkstone case is Kakinomoto-no-Hitomaro, the writer of the following much-quoted waka poem: “On the slowly dawning Akashi Bay, the dissipating morning fog reveals a boat disappearing behind an island. I’m filled with awe.” Since the mid-Heian Period, people had held waka parties by hanging the portrait of “saintly poet” Hitomaro and offering incense and votives. Often, the above poem accompanied such portraits.
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Identifiers
- Title (EN)
- Writing Box with the Poet KAKINOMOTO no Hitomaro
Physical description
- Weights and quantities
-
Quantity 1合
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