- Writing table
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Writing table
- Place of origin:
Japan (made)
- Date:
ca. 1620 (made)
- Materials and Techniques:
Wood, covered with gold and silver <i>takamaki-e</i> (high sprinkled picture) and <i>nashiji (pear-skin ground)</i> lacquer, with gold and silver details; silvered metal fittings
- Credit Line:
Given by the Misses Alexander
- Museum number:
W.339-1916
- Gallery location:
In Storage
This writing desk illustrates a pictorial representation of a poem. The literary design hints at lines of a renga or thirty-one syllable poem that were composed by two people. The poem, like the design on the writing desk, illustrates the themes of loneliness and separation through motifs like a broken bridge for decay and a dilapidated palace on the left side of the box. On the right side are salt burners huts which are perhaps in reference to a place known as Suma, famous as a place of exile during the early 9th century. Such writing desks were used for composing poetry during special gatherings or for writing letters and calligraphy. Most tables were used to illustrate aesthetic taste rather than being purely practicle in function.
