SHIBATA ZESHIN (1807-1891) A Small Lacquer Box with Autumn Grasses Design Meiji era (1868-1912), circa 1870-1890 (4)SHIBATA ZESHIN (1807-1891)A Small Lacquer Box with Autumn Grasses Design Meiji era (1868–1912), circa 1870–1890With a kabusebuta (overhanging lid), the body with rounded edges, likely constructed using a combination of the magemono (bentwood) and harinuki (layered-paper) techniques, the reddish-brown lacquer ground cut and engraved in subori with a design of susuki (miscanthus) and fujibakama ('purple trousers' or thoroughwort); signed with incised characters inside the lid at lower left Zeshin; with a fitted clear-lacquered wood tomobako inscribed Zeshin saku akikusa-bako (Box with autumn plants by Zeshin) and paper label from the Zeshin Hyakunijunen Tsuizen Tenran (Zeshin 120th Anniversary Display), held in Tokyo in 2011. 3.9cm × 8.5cm × 7.4cm (1½in × 3 3/8in × 2 7/8in). (4).Provenance:Misumi Collection.Sold in these Rooms, 10 November 2015, lot 1.A Royal Collection.Exhibited:Zeshin Hyakunijunen Tsuizen Tenran, Tokyo, 2011.Exhibited and Published:Nezu Museum, Shibata Zeshin no shikko, urushi-e, kaiga (Shibata Zeshin: From Lacquer Arts to Painting), exh. cat., Tokyo, 2012, cat. no.56.In his catalogue note for the 2012 Zeshin exhibition at the Nezu Museum, Takao Yo comments that Zeshin used a single marukebori (curved line-engraving) knife to execute this delicate composition. For a somewhat larger box by Zeshin with a related autumnal design in different techniques, see Joe Earle and Tadaomi Goke, Meiji no Takara, Treasures of Imperial Japan, Masterpieces by Shibata Zeshin [in the Khalili Collection], London, Kibo Foundation, 1996, cat. no.21.