A JAPANESE KODAIJI-STYLE LACQUER MIMIDARAI BASIN AND A BOX AND COVER.

Edo period and later.

The mimidarai of typical rounded form rising from a flared foot, set with two horizontal handles to the side, painted with scrolling floral tendrils and paulownia foliage on a flat black ground, together with a black lacquer circular box decorated to the cover with three mon in gilt: the Fujiwara Wisteria, Tokugawa Triple Hollyhock and another bamboo mon, signed Sanoyama ga, 35cm across. (3)

See Suchomel, Filip and Suchomelova, Marcela, A Surface Created for Decoration, Prague, 2002, plate 104 for a similar example of mimidarai in the Naprstek Museum in Prague.

Mimidarai is a part of the set of utensils used for teeth blackening (ohaguro), a traditional beauty routine popular in Japan since Kofun period (300-538 AD) and shared by some Southeast Asian tribes. It uses a dark-brown solution of ferric acetate (kanemizu), produced by dissolving iron filings in vinegar and mixed with vegetable tannins. Although the practice was considered barbaric by the Westerners, coating the teeth with this concoction every few days actually helped to prevent tooth decay.