Geography
Japanese
Rooms that change, and objects made to be put away
A Japanese interior is not furnished so much as arranged. Tatami sets the scale, shoji filters the light, and a single alcove — the tokonoma — carries whatever the season calls for. Everything else lives in chests: tansu are portable by design, because a house is a set of rooms that change use. Storage is part of the aesthetic rather than a way of hiding things from it.
History
The Edo period (1603–1868) is where almost everything collectable comes from: tansu chests built by region for a specific trade, lacquer, and the woodblock print as a popular art rather than a court one.
The Meiji period (1868–1912) is the opening to the West, and it produced a vocabulary made for strangers — cloisonné, Satsuma ware and bronze, technically superb and deliberately export-facing.
What to look for
Ironwork and joinery on a chest before the wood, a seal or signature on lacquer, and printing that is crisp rather than flattened.
Search the collection
The searches this geography is worth looking at. Each opens the collection for it.