AROUND HOME : Japanese Combs
THE ART OF making the useful beautiful is a Japanese speciality. Take, for example, those artifacts made of lacquered wood, porcelain and fabric that are used, particularly by women, during the tea ceremony, for flower arranging, in the wearing of the traditional kimono. It has long been found in lacquered cabinets, occasional tables, kimono stands, head rests, trays, bowls, picnic boxes, writing cases. The same high quality is more than evident in those elaborate artifacts needed in arranging a lady’s hair: mirror stands and cosmetic boxes, along decorative combs of all shapes and sizes, and ornamental hairpins ( kodai and kanzashi ).
Combs have been made out of almost every material; the earliest were of deer horn, animal bones, wood and bamboo. In the 18th and 19th Centuries, they came to be made of ivory, tortoise-shell and boxwood, and many of them were lacquered and decorated by well-known artists. Often ivory and tortoise-shell were lacquered and set with coral or jade. All the decorative motifs (cranes, leaves, symbols of all kinds) found elsewhere in Japanese art were found in the comb, as they were found in the inro and the netsuke --all three practical objects used in everyday life.
Lacquer work was particularly prized in the Japanese comb, since it stood out so well against jet-black hairdos. Encrustations of shell, mother-of-pearl, coral and metal were often found as well. And, from the earliest times a technique called makie (literally, “sprinkled picture”) was used: sprinkling the surface of the comb or hair pin with flaked or powdered gold, silver or copper. The price of antique combs still vary a good deal--from a few dollars to many hundreds, depending on the age and condition of the example in question and depending upon the complexity of the decoration involved.
Look for Japanese combs at Larchmont Japanese Antiques in Los Angeles; McMullen’s Japanese Gallery and I.M. Chait in Santa Monica; The Gallery in Palos Verdes Estates; Pacific-Asia Museum (Osborne Gallery) and Okame Arts in Pasadena; Oriental Arts in Coronado, and The Antique Collection in Ojai.
