JAPAN
the material in fine strips and weave them in basket meshes, the technical difficulty constituting the chic of the article. An ivory, ebony, or bamboo surface carved so as to be indistinguishable from basket work was also prized, and, for the rest, many quaint and pretty methods of sculpture and decoration were employed; but, on the whole, the tobacco pouch itself, apart from its appendages, was the least ornate of the girdle-pendants.
The pipe-case (kiseruzutsu) is another of Japan's glyptic triumphs. M. Gonse justly says that there are few objects on which Japanese artists have expended more consideration and taste. In form it is very simple—a slightly flattened tube, the upper portion of which slips into the lower in such a manner as to be gripped more tightly the further it is inserted. The material is ebony, bamboo, sandalwood, horn, ivory, lacquered wood, and sometimes metal. Carved with exquisite care and taste in high relief, elaborately engraved, inlaid with various substances, or overlaid with applied ornaments, the pipe-case is unquestionably a charming specimen of decorative art. It must not be supposed, however, that richness and profusion of ornamentation are regarded as evidences of excellence in Japan. M. Gonse, in an outburst of enthusiasm, refers to a pipe-case in the Goncourt collection as le roi des étuis à pipe passés, présents et futures, and describes it thus: "It is a bamboo tube, the rotundity slightly flattened, covered with a flight of dragon-flies. One cannot imagine anything more marvellously captivating, more sumptuous than this decoration, half in relief, half incised, enriched with enamel, with mother-of-pearl, and with coloured ivory; with gradations and effects of
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