Japanese Lacquer Cigar Barrel with Silver and Lotus Cranes Motifs

A Japanese lacquer cigar barrel decorated with Sterling Silver. It is lacquered by Kita Hama a famous Japanese lacquer artist of Noto in the North Japan. 
 
Lacquer was first developed in China and later Japan. The material opened and offered to artists a wide scope to create beautiful paintings and pictures on furniture, trays, vases, cups and any kind meant for visual pleasure such as scenes from nature, mythology, and literature. The processes to reach this artistic level expanded into using silver, gold, inlay shell and other materials.
 
The inspiration for this collection came from Rolf von Bueren’s visit to Japan in the early 70’s, where he saw the process of Maki-e Lacquer. Maki-e is Japanese lacquer sprinkled with gold or silver powder as a decoration using a cannister (makizutsu) or a hair-tipped paint brush (kebo brush). The technique was developed mainly during the Heian period (794–1185) to decorate screens, albums, letter boxes, and ink-slab cases. To create different colours and textures, maki-e artists use a variety of metal powders including gold, silver, copper etc. as alloys. Bamboo tubes and soft brushes of various sizes are used for laying powders and drawing fine lines. As it requires highly skilled craftsmanship to produce a maki-e painting, young artists usually go through many years of training to develop the skills and to ultimately become maki-e masters.
 
Lotus Arts de Vivre use the best artisans in Japan for such skilled work and then embellishes them with their own design, never competing with the original Japanese design, only adding enough to make the pieces more desirable and more authentic.
 
After sourcing the material, this piece took approximately 1 month to finish, with over 5 craftsmen and designers involved.
 
Size: 3.2(W) x 17(H) cm.
Weight: 39.40 g.