Reading Stand with Chrysanthemums and Autumn Grasses
early 1600s
- Medium
- Wood with lacquer, sprinkled gold powder (maki-e), and metal fittings
- Classification
- Lacquer
- Dimensions
- Overall: 53.3 x 30.5 x 45.7 cm (21 x 12 x 18 in.)
- Culture
- Japan, Momoyama period (1573–1615)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Japanese Art
- Credit line
- Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Japanese reading stands often incorporate motifs associated with seasonal poetry. The combination of long, narrow, miscanthus grass, bush clover with its small, ovoid leaves, and chrysanthemum with its many-petaled blossoms is classic autumnal imagery. One lacquer technique featured prominently on the stand is sprinkled gold in low relief (hiramaki-e). Pear-skin ground design (nashiji-e) is used for the slopes of the ground and in some of the leaves.
