Japanese Shibayama Whist Counters

(If you've gotten here by accident and don't know what's going on, click WHAT THE HELL IS A WHIST COUNTER?  If you don't know the difference between a Whist Counter and a Whist Marker, click WHAT THE HELL IS A WHIST MARKER?)

It was in Japan that whist counters achieved their highest degree of artistic expression.  During the Meiji era, the Emperor decided to Westernize the country, and the artists and artisans who had created netsukes, sword furniture and exquisite lacquerware inro suddenly found themselves out of work. Some turned to making items for the export trade, and one thing that suited their talents perfectly were whist counters.  In the 1880's Orientalism became the rage in Great Britain and France, and exotic Japanese whist counters were eagerly snapped up (no pun intended).  

The examples below date to this period.  Because the Goodall design wasn't patented until 1888, we can probably date all of these counters to the 1890's. The first pair are made entirely of lacquer, the rest have a rosewood body.  All have ivory pegs inlaid with small hard-stone insects, a technique called Shibayama, and all have the same kind of floral lacquer ("hiramaki-e") designs that are found  on Japanese inro.

Click on any counter to see a larger image

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As with fine ceramics, some of these counters came cased in their own boxes.  Thanks to the kindness of Patrick Horsbrugh in Denmark and his Japanese colleague Norio Fukasawa, I can now read the inscriptions on the box below (and sorry it's taken so long to get this onto the site):  

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According to them, the inscriptions basically say "With Wood and Ivory Calculate Number [characters reading "mathematic" or in this case "tally"] followed by the name of the manufacturer, which they first translated as "Date Truth Old Official" which is quite a marvelous title, don't you think?  Mr. Fukasawa later pointed out that the character he translated as "Date" can also mean "Sun," which would make the maker's name "Sun Truth Old Official," which is also quite impressive.  According to Mr. Fukasawa this would be a somewhat odd name for a manufacturer, but Japanese calligraphers of the period often used flowery pen names and perhaps the artist/craftsman who made the counter chose to do the same.

As in all industries, quality varied from maker to maker.  The above examples are all very good quality.  The example below left, while an atypical design using red as a second lacquer color, is not as artistically executed as the ones above, or the even finer example on the right.

 

The difference in quality is very clearly seen in the Shibayama pegs.  The ones on the top row below are from the counter on the above left, the ones on the bottom row from the counter on the right.  Notice the much more complicated shapes on the ones in the bottom row and how the birds' feathers are delineated.

There were lacquerware and Shibayama workers of even higher caliber.  It is sobering to contemplate that in the 1890's that these artists and the traditional crafts of Japan had been reduced to making whist counters for the English market. 

Here's an example where one poor Meiji artisan of sword furniture has actually incorporated a menuki onto a counter.

And click on the counter below to see the finest such example in my collection -- it warrants a page of its own. 


Best Lacquerware 
Shibayama Counter

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Copyright by Charles Mathes.  All rights reserved