Set of Five Writing Boxes with Japanese Globeflowers, Plum Blossoms, and Interlaced Roundels

Set of Five Writing Boxes with Japanese Globeflowers, Plum Blossoms, and Interlaced Roundels

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Writing-box sets are used in poetry contests or incense games in which several participants have to write at the same time. The writing boxes are distributed at the beginning of the event and collected at the end. This set of five boxes is housed in an open frame decorated with a landscape with a river and Japanese globeflowers. The lid of the stacked boxes is embellished with a plum-tree branch and brushwood fence, a well-known design from the Tōshōgū (Tokugawa memorial shrine) in Nikkō, where the door of the main shrine is decorated with a similar motif. The sides are embellished with interlaced gold and silver roundels (shippō), an auspicious motif on nashiji (pear skin) ground.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Set of Five Writing Boxes with Japanese Globeflowers, Plum Blossoms, and Interlaced RoundelsSet of Five Writing Boxes with Japanese Globeflowers, Plum Blossoms, and Interlaced RoundelsSet of Five Writing Boxes with Japanese Globeflowers, Plum Blossoms, and Interlaced RoundelsSet of Five Writing Boxes with Japanese Globeflowers, Plum Blossoms, and Interlaced RoundelsSet of Five Writing Boxes with Japanese Globeflowers, Plum Blossoms, and Interlaced Roundels

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.