Tanabe Chikuunsai II (1910-2000)
Item number: T-3105Size: H 18.1" x L 6.1" x W 5.3" (46 x 15.5 x 13.5 cm)
Age: 1950s
Signed: Chikuunsai kore tsukuru »Chikuunsai made this«
Box inscription: Kikkō sukashi ito shihōkei hanakago »Bamboo Basket in Square Form with Hexagonal Thread Weave«
This bamboo ikebana basket is formed of thread-like, extremely narrow strips of bamboo which were lacquered upon completion. The delicate body is plaited remarkably evenly in the hexagonal muttsume-ami pattern, forming a square body with rounded corners. Twelve wider strips reinforce the body, two of which loop to form the handle. The bottom, which is also plaited in the same hexagonal pattern, is reinforced with additional bamboo strips, one of which bears the incised signature reading »Chikuunsai kore tsukuru« or »Chikuunsai made this.«
The basket comes with its original fitted kiri-wood tomobako box, which is inscribed on the top of the lid »Kikkō sukashi ito shihōkei hanakago« or »Bamboo Basket in Square Form with Hexagonal Thread Weave.« The inside of the lid is signed »Sakaifu Nansō Chikuunsai kore tsukuru« or »Chikuunsai of the Nansō Studio in Sakai-fu made this« and stamped with two red seals reading »Tanabe no in« (»seal of Tanabe«) and »Chikuunsai.«
For other baskets by Chikuunsai II plaited in the similar delicate muttsume-ami pattern, see Japanese Bamboo Baskets: Masterworks of Form & Texture from the Collection of Lloyd Cotsen (Los Angeles: Cotsen Occasional Press, 1999), item number 108 as well as Japanese Paintings and Works of Art (New York: Erik Thomsen LLC Asian Art, 2007), item number 20.
The artist name Chikuunsai belongs to the Tanabe family, one of the most important bamboo-basket makers of Osaka. Chikuunsai I lived from 1877 to 1937; this basket was made by his son Chikuunsai II, who in turn passed on the artist name to his oldest son, Chikuunsai III (b. 1940), in 1991. The son of Chikuunsai III, Tanabe Shōchiku III (b. 1973), continues the bamboo tradition as the fourth-generation bamboo maker of the Tanabe family.
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