Writing Box (Suzuribako) with Design of Pine, Camellia, and Bamboo (lid) (1400s): Art, History and Details

Writing Box (Suzuribako) with Design of Pine, Camellia, and Bamboo (lid) (1400s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Writing boxes were indispensible personal possessions for the literate of medieval Japan. Beyond containing the tools for artistic expression and communication such as an ink stone, writing brushes, and a water dropper, writing boxes often featured scenes from classical literature or symbolic motifs rendered in a wide array of complex lacquer techniques.

Object facts

• Title: Writing Box (Suzuribako) with Design of Pine, Camellia, and Bamboo (lid)
• Date: 1400s
• Culture: Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573)
• Type: Lacquer
• Technique: Lacquered wood with gold and silver sprinkled powder (maki-e)
• Dimensions: Overall: 24.2 x 22.6 cm (9 1/2 x 8 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1969.124.b

A detail from the museum

The combination of pine, bamboo, and plum is a common seasonal motif; here the plum is replaced with camellia.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Art of Asia Recently Acquired by American Museums, 1969.” Archives of Asian Art 24 (1970): 86–117.
• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1969.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 57, no. 1 (January 1970): 2–51.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.