Incense box with peacock design

The background of this box is known as “pear-skin ground” (nashiji), because the loose sprinkling of gold dust over the surface resembles the skin of an Asian pear (nashi). The body of the peacock was also created by applying gold dust to the lacquered surface of the box, a technique called maki-e (sprinkled pictures), while the bird’s tail feathers are adorned with tiny pieces of iridescent mother-of-pearl embedded into the surface. The delicacy of this box’s design is characteristic of lacquerware created in Japan in the 1500s.