A very favourite object for the lacquerer is the inro or medicine-box—a little box made in three or four separate sections and hung from the girdle by a cord. On the small surface here available he lavished all the resources of his art, and in inro we find many of the finest specimens of lacquer-work. Indeed, few things are more beautiful than a fine inro, with its rich but exquisitely judged ornamentation, for the Japanese artist possesses in a marvellous degree the power of working on a small field without loss of power or dignity. Even a specimen in plain black lacquer, unornamented, is a thing of beauty, pleasing to touch and to handle, and so perfectly made that the divisions between the sections are often invisible until they are pulled apart. This perfection of fitting is one of the tests by which the work of the old masters can be distinguished from that of their modern imitators.

Of the larger pieces of work the chief is the suzuri-bako, or set of writing materials. Then we have the jisshu kobako, or implements of the perfume game, comprising a cabinet containing the koro or miniature brazier, the kobako or perfume-box, fuda-bako or counter-box, and several other articles; and the sagé-ju, or portable picnic case, containing boxes, trays for sweetmeats, saké bottle, and so on.

Japanese authorities divide the history of lacquer into four eras—that of Nara, prior to 784 A.D.; Heian, 784-1185; Nanbokucho and Ashikaga, 1397-1587; Toyotomi and Tokugawa, 1597-1867. Of the earlier lacquerers little is known. In the fifteenth century, during the reign of the Ashikaga Shoguns, fine work was produced by Igarashi, the first of a line of lacquerers of that name. Little progress was made, however, until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when, after years of strife, the turbulent Daimios were finally subdued by Iyeyasu, the first of the Tokugawa Shoguns, and the country entered on a period of peaceful development. Towards the end of the seventeenth century began to rise the first of the great lacquerers, whose works are still the envy and wonder of their successors.

As in other branches of art, the traditions of this craft were handed down from father to son, and certain families became famed for lacquer. Two stand out especially as masters in the art—the Koma and the Kajikawa families.

The Komas were Court lacquerers for more than two hundred years, the first of the family, Koma Kiui, who died in 1663, being lacquerer to the Shogun Iyemitsu, and the line lasted until the nineteenth century.

The rise of the Kajikawa family was somewhat later; the first, Kajikawa Kujiro, one of the most excellent artists in lacquer, and famous for his giobu nashiji, lived about the end of the eighteenth century. He also was followed by a line of famous artists.

Both the Koma and the Kajikawa families were especially famous as inro-makers, and in this branch of the art it is difficult to say which was the greater. The Koma were remarkable for their coloured decorations, in which the design looked at by oblique light appears to be of gold but by direct light shows in brilliant colour.

One of the earliest lacquerers of whom there is any record is Honami Koyetsu, 1590-1637. Korin is said to have founded his style on that of Koyetsu, whose work certainly resembles to some extent that of the later and more famous artist. In Mr Tomkinson’s collection are two inros by Koyetsu and Korin respectively, each decorated with the same design—the pier of a bridge in mother-of-pearl and gold—and treated in an almost identical manner.

The greatest of all names in lacquer is that of Ogata Korin, born 1660, died 1716. As a painter he is entitled to a place among the highest, but as a lacquerer he stands alone. His absolute originality and boldness of conception, his masterly instinct in design, and his splendid draughtsmanship are seen equally in his lacquer as in his paintings, but it is in his lacquer only that his unrivalled decorative powers find their fullest scope.

If the Japanese decorative artist has a fault it is that he is too pictorial in his methods, that he is almost invariably endeavouring to tell a story. But Korin does not lacquer like a painter, he paints like a lacquerer. He is first of all boldly and frankly decorative—the literary appeal is secondary. And though to one not thoroughly in sympathy with the artist there is much in his work that appears obscure or unintelligible, to the eye of the enthusiast these “obscurities” are splendid and triumphant pieces of decoration. Mere prettiness appealed little to Korin, but his work has on this account the greater dignity. Even when at first sight it startles and almost repels it soon grows on one; the longer one looks the stronger is its fascination.