Need to impress guests at your next cherry blossom viewing party? Try this luxurious picnic set, originally made for a well-heeled fashionista in Japan in the 1800s and adorned with gold, silver, and lacquer in an array of colors and designs. It has built-in food boxes to hold an assortment of goodies (everything from rice balls, pickled fruits, and veggies to delicate sweets) and the plates to serve them on. No one will go thirsty—the set includes a generously sized bottle for pouring sake. All of this fits into an elegant, lightweight frame with a handle, so it can be carried out onto the veranda or beneath a canopy of cherry blossoms in the garden.
This type of picnic set is known as sagejū, short for sage-jūbako, literally “portable stacked boxes.” Not all *jūbako *were so portable—standalone versions were popular as well.
The food boxes, sake bottle, and dishes fit into a lightweight frame with a handle, making the set portable. The artist designed this frame to look like two handheld drums placed side by side.
The sake bottle, or tokkuri, is shaped like a segment of bamboo. Its surface features a motif long loved by Chinese and Japanese artists: sparrows flitting in and around bamboo.
Each tier of the jūbako features a favorite floral motif associated with either autumn or spring. At the very top is the mid-spring peony (botan), the so-called "King of All Flowers."
Below the peonies are autumnal maple leaves (momiji), depicted in shades of gold and silver with touches of red lacquer.
Since ancient times, the beloved chrysanthemum (kiku) has symbolized autumn. Here it decorates the second middle tier.
If the canopy of delicate, short-lived cherry blossoms gracing your picnic aren't sufficient, there are more elegant gold ones on this tier of the stacked food box.
Nadeshiko, a type of fringed dianthus sometimes called "Pinks," were just beginning to be cultivated in the 1800s. The artist highlights these trendy flowers with pops of colored lacquer.
This set features a variety of lacquer techniques. Here, gold and silver foil are crushed and sprinkled onto the surface while the lacquer is still wet. It is called "pear skin ground" (nashiji) since it resembles the lightly speckled skin of an Asian pear.