A Japanese export lacquer incense container, late 17th Century.

A shallow rectangular incense container with canted corners, decorated in gold hiromaki-e with a  flight of plovers on a nashiji ground, 12.8cm.

The container appears in both the 1835 and 1867 Burghley Inventories.

Recent research suggests that it was originally associated with JWA09031, a larger box with the same canted corners and a flight of plovers depicted on the underside of the lid; this smaller box nesting, with others, within the larger one.

REFERENCE: JWA09020

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