Small chest of drawers with stripe design in urushi carving.

I devised a way of opening the box so that the design would change depending on the angle, and the patterns would look as if they were connected however the box is opened. I made hinges and attached them in 4 places on the sides of the box. I made the box so that the design of the paulownia chest, the urushi carved parts and ivory handle would look especially beautiful when the box is opened fully.
Kiso cypress is used for the base, and for the parts where the metal fittings of the hinges are set, mortise-tenon joints are made by inlaying black urushi carved wood in the Japanese cypress wood.
By doing this, the metal fittings of the hinges are detachable, making the finish of the piece precise and detailed from the base, undercoating up to the decorations.
For the decoration, the 0.8 mm thick navy blue and black lacquered wood strips are pasted alternately. In the middle, white pearl oyster shells and black lacquered wooden parts both 0.8 mm thick are pasted to finish the design of the box as a whole.

• Carved lacquer

  Carved lacquer (choshitsu) is made by first coating a piece in dozens of layers of colored lacquer. Then, a carving blade is used to cut into the lacquer and produce three-dimensional relief carvings.