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LATE EDO PERIOD (MID-19TH CENTURY) The fine gold lacquer cabinet comprising three shelves, three sets of sliding doors, nine variously-sized drawers and two hinged doors which open to reveal a further shelf and pair of sliding doors; the cabinet decorated overall in gold, black and silver low-relief lacquer (hiramaki-e), high-relief lacquer (takamaki-e), hirame, kirikane and inlaid in shakudo against a kinji ground, the doors and drawers with intricate scenes from The Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety, the hinged doors with lower panels depicting mythical kirin to the outside, the interior of the doors with an elephant and a young boy hoeing a field with birds, the sides and reverse decorated with cranes in flight over hills and pine trees; the shelves with scattered Tokugawa mon on a nashiji ground; applied with engraved metalwork mounts with applied mon, the drawers with engraved silvered fittings, the interior of one door signed Harui and sealed Sei (Harui Seizaburo) 117 (H) x 107 (W) x 49.7 cm. (D) (46 x 42 1/8 x 19 ? in.)
The Twenty Four Paragons of Filial Piety was written by the Yuan Dynasty scholar and well-known poet Guo Jujing (Jp: Kaku Kyokei). This highly influential text featuring twenty-four pious children as paragons of filial piety and was used to teach Confucian moral values. The theme entered Japan during the Momoyama period (1573–1615) and became extensively celebrated in Japanese art.
Pictured in fine lacquer on this cabinet (inside the hinged doors) is the paragon Dashun (Jp: Taishun), a legendary emperor who, despite a neglectful father who favoured his cruel step-mother and her son, went to cultivate land for his parents on Mt. Li, where an elephant and bird helped him with the difficult task. Also featured (lower left drawer-front) is Yang Xiang (Jp: You Kou), who aged fourteen, was accompanying his father into the mountains when a tiger leapt out at them. Without thinking of his own life, the son protectively jumped in front of his father, scaring off the tiger with his show of determined will. Also depicted (to the left-hand sliding door in upper right shelf) is Huang Shangu (Jp: Kou Sankoku; 1045-1105), a famous Northern Song calligrapher and poet, who was so devoted to his mother that he washed her chamber pot.