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an inro made for export tastes, by the Shibayama family |
context: lacquerwork > objects > inro > fashion
Decline
At the end of the 19th Century, after the opening up to the West, Japanese men, in public at first, and then everywhere, more and more adopted Western dress. These clothes had pockets, and hanging things like inro made no sense. The sumptuary laws went too, and new values were coming in in every way, and many found themselves in money troubles. Inro were abandoned. There were immense numbers of them around, and a fad for Japonisme in the West, so thousands were sold and exported - most of the biggest and best collections now are outside Japan. Some families/workshops were sustained by this market - the Shibayama family for instance went for ostentatious and over-decorated inro produced for export.