Mini Jewelry Safe | 19th Century

This jewelry safe hardly reveals any serious security needs. Storing expensive jewelry in the drawers can only have a playful purpose, even though the box can be locked with a finely crafted handle. The appliqué mini-sculptures are enchanting. One discovers the corpulent god of fortune, Hotei, with his sack full of riches. Ebisu, the divine fisherman who brings luck to merchants, may also be depicted on one side. Another figure, iconographically indecipherable, crawls toward two golden partridges on the box lid...

On all sides, there are also engravings of symbols representing wealth and happiness – not all of which can be explained today.

The fine gold lacquer painting maki e on the inside of the door (with the charming flower motif) and on the fronts of the drawers of the “safe” is astonishing.