The surface of the case is covered with thick gold powders. Small boats are lined up in the waves, crossed by a bridge. The cursive characters created from strips of silver makes this design more elegant. The scripts quote a poem by Hitoshi Minamoto from the tenth-century anthology that read; On east road, crossing the boat-bridge of Sano, crossing my mind, thoughts that no one knows. In this design, no scripts for "boat-bridge" were on the case but pictures were there.
Inside, a water dropper and an ink stone are inset at the left, in a right space is for a small knife and a brush rest.
Amazingly the body of box is made by layered clothes with urishi lacquer in order to produce this round shape case design. It took a year and half to create just for smooth solid urishi lacquer coated body of box and another a year half to draw makie picture on the box.
If you were interested with the information on original design of art works recognized as national treasure of Japan, please see a following site. Link to Tokyo National Museum
Length 17.6cm, Width 16.4cm, Height 8.6cm. Art works of Sanao Matsuda
Material: Layered clothes with Urushi lacquer box, gold powders, urushi lacquer, silver scripts and Lead bridge.
