Object details
Accession number
M18e44.a-b
Primary Creator
Japanese
Full title
Crane and Tortoise Box
Creation Date
1894
Provenance
Made to be presented to guests at the imperial banquet for the 25th wedding annniversary of the Meiji Emperor and Empress in 1894.Gift from the Japanese art historian Tomita Kojiro (1890-1976) to Isabella Stewart Gardner, probably about 1909.
Marks
Inscribed: 明治二十七年三月九日 [Meiji, 27th year (1894), third month, ninth day]
Dimensions
10.5 cm (4 1/8 in.) high
Display Media
Silver with gold and lacquer
Web Commentary
This crane and tortoise box was designed and produced to be given to guests at the imperial banquet for the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary of the Meiji Emperor and Empress in 1894. Often referred to by the French term “bonbonnière,” the box is decorated with a crane and two tortoises (minogame), historic motifs that convey messages of auspiciousness and longevity across East Asia. Aside from one other in a private Hong Kong collection, all examples of this bonbonnière are in the collection of the Japanese Imperial Household. Kojiro Tomita (1890-1976), Isabella’s friend and a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gave this box to Isabella sometime around the year 1909. Isabella displayed it in the Little Salon along with other objects commemorating her friendships.
Permanent Gallery Location
Little Salon
Bibliography
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 145. (as Japanese, dated 9 March 1894)
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