Covered container

This lidded container made of black lacquer over a wood core is decorated with charming motifs of pomegranates, stylized scrolls, and sixteen different fruits, vegetables, and flowers. The decorations were executed in a method known as litharge painting (mitsuda-e in Japanese)—using mineral pigments mixed with perilla oil and lead oxide—and gold paint.

The container appears to be Chinese in origin, but the painted motifs may have been added in Japan or in the southern Ryukyu Islands (known today as Okinawa), which traded heavily with China and the main Japanese islands. In Japan such a container would likely have been used to hold sweets and other foodstuffs.