Top: The crest of the Tokugawa.
Below: The crest of the Mori.

The 2 families are identified by their distinctive crests or mons: the hollyhock leaves (aoi) represent the Tokugawa, and the water plantain (omodaka) represents the Mori. The 12 mons of each type on the jikiro indicate that a daughter of the Tokugawa was the bride. Such marriages, along with the policy of alternate year attendance (sankin kotai) at the capital by the daiymo of each clan, were methods by which the Tokugawa maintained political control during 250 years of peace of the Edo Period (1615–1868).

Method of Construction

Detail of the laquered gold and silver pattern.
Bowl height 11 inches (28 cm); maximum
diameter 15 inches (38 cm); diameter
of foot 9 inches (23 cm).
YPM catalog no. ANT. 241835

There are 5 materials used in the construction of this Japanese food bowl. The jikiro was shaped on a turning wheel from a well-seasoned woodblock, most likely of cypress. After careful polishing, the wooden substrate was coated with at least 50 layers of lacquer derived from the sap of an Asian sumac (Rhus verniciflua). Each layer took up to 5 days to harden, depending on the temperature and humidity in the workshop. Pulverized natural crystals—black iron oxide for the outer surface, and red cinnabar (mercury sulfide) for the inner surface—were used to color the transparent refined lacquer. The lightning design was applied by sprinkling gold and silver powders (makie) on the still damp lacquer. The mons, cut from gold sheets, likewise were affixed to still wet layers of lacquer.

This wedding gift was most likely made in or near Kyoto in the early 17th century.

The Collector: Mabel Loomis Todd (1856–1932)

The track of the 1896 solar eclipse in Japan (diagonal area across upper right corner).
From Mabel Loomis Todd’s Corona and Coronet, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, New York, 1899.

Inset: The schooner “Coronet” under sail with passengers, including the Todds. They sailed from San Francisco to Yokohama and back.

Yale University Archives

An extraordinary instrument designer in the field of astronomy, David Todd, professor at Amherst College, often led expeditions to photograph the sun’s corona during total eclipses. Mabel, a painter, talented writer, and lecturer who was the first editor of Emily Dickinson’s poems, always accompanied him, reporting on many aspects of these worldwide adventures for American audiences.

The Collector: Mabel Loomis Todd (1856–1932)

An Ainu couple in their house with lacquerware.
Yale University Archives

For more than a century the Ainu had collected Japanese lacquer as they bartered for fish, seaweed and animal pelts with Japanese traders. Mabel Todd’s photograph of these lacquer items includes the great jikiro shown here.