I missed copying this one across as it was made back in November 2019 - so here goes.
Those of you who follow my posts will now that I have been inspired boxes and chests from Japan. The range and unique aspects of them just fascinate me.
When I first saw these Japanese sea captains chest I knew had to make one. A some of you will know I love making complex things with hidden compartments. This would be a sort of simpler Japanese version of my Curiosity Cabinet. If you didn't see it, then check it out here
So, this cabinet or in Japanese, 'tansu' , is based on the sea chests - Funa Dansu, used by seafarers working the shipping trade routes around the coasts of Japan in the mid 1800's. This particular style is a Chobako or ledger box, and would have been the property of a sea captain. Trading around the coast of Japan in the 1800's was far easier than going over land. Sea captains went from just transporting/freighting goods, to becoming wealthy traders. They would purchase their cargos and then sell then on, as they sailed around the coast - a very profitable venture, worth far more than just charging the freight costs for someone else's cargo.
This portable chobako would be used by the ships master to store all the documentation relating to his voyage: rites of passage, 'passports', licenses, and trading papers etc. It would also house his official seals, and writing paraphernalia in a traditional Suzuri-bako, and a strong box or zenibako, for his money. It would be taken ashore when trading, where it was designed to impress the land-based merchants, with its innovative construction, multiple locks, numerous drawers, boxes in boxes, secret compartments, and decorative yet functional external iron work. It seems the Sea captains would try to outdo each other with grander and more complex designs in order to generate interest.
The design for this one is based on ideas from a range of images found on the internet, and in three excellent books - Traditional Japanese Cabinetry by Ty & Kiyoko Heineken, Traditional Japanese furniture, A definitive Guide, by Kazuko Koizumi, and Traditional Japanese Chests, A definitive Guide, also by Kazuko Koizumi.
So lets get into it!! At first sight it appears to have a full width locked top drawer - actually its a false drawer front, behind which is a proper locked drawer, and the Suzuri-bako writing box to the right. Below are three locked doors - the left and right are hinged, while the middle one is a drop fit kendon door.
These three front doors open onto six 'drawer' spaces. Most are covered with a locking drop-fit, kendon door, with proper drawers/boxes behind. Some of which are also locked in place.
Below you can see the top row of drawers removed. These all have a a sliding or lift off lid and various partitions inside. On the right is the writing box, Suzuri-bako, with its ink stone, ink stick, water dropper for grinding/mixing the ink, and brushes in its bottom drawer.
Now to the bottom row. The small lidded boxes on the left with ring pull handles, are from two of the secret compartments hidden behind two of the drawers and further hidden behind false backs. The middle drawer with the just visible dovetails is the strong box.
A 'bare' paulownia box-in-box, is in the middle of the of picture above sitting on top of the jarrah strong box. This is secured with a 'fish' pad lock.
The two out bottom row drawers both have sliding fronts behind which is a separate box - so box-in-box. One of which is locked in place even with the sliding front removed! The longest drawer has a second box-in-box behind the first one!
Below shows the secret compartment hidden behind the writing box. The top drawer needs to be removed completely to gain access to this. It has three secret compartments mostly hidden behind false backs to the drawer cavities.
The chest has a traditional protective fabric cover, which has the ships crest on the front replicating the crest on the middle door of the chest.
The whole interior of the chest is secured by fifteen locks. On this one there are just three different keys. However on the originals different sections and drawers would have totally different keys, looked after by different crew members, so no one person would have tatotal access to the chests contents!
As in an original chobako mine is made almost entirely of paulownia, the inside of which was traditionally left largely unfinished. Paulownia is a very light weight stable timber almost totally unaffected by changes in humidity, so it is not prone to warping or cupping. The main outer chest and the internal boxes and drawers are all constructed using traditional pegged/nailed finger joints. While I used traditional Japanese wooden nails on the larger cabinetry, for the smaller boxes and drawers I used toothpicks! The main paulownia doors, and the internal drop fit doors use a traditional Japanese 'mitred-clamp joint' construction.
It is interesting that on pieces of finest Japanese woodwork there are no visible joints. This chest has finger and dovetail joints a-plenty all clearly visible. So be by earlier definition it is not a piece of fine woodwork! I think in the west we get hung up showing fancy joints to demonstrate our skill as a craftsman, when actually, its much harder to produce boxes that have no visible corner joints and in my mind more aesthetically pleasing!
The front of the chest together with many of the internal drop-fit doors, and drawer fronts are faced with a thick decorative Jarrah burl. The originals would have used Japanese zelkova or chestnut burls. The outer chest is veneered with jarrah, substituting for straight grained zelkova or cryptomania (cedar) on an original.
Traditionally the whole chest was covered with a range of reinforcing metal strap work, with decorative escutcheons, and embossed metal plaques to add to the grandeur of the chest. These were produced by exceptionally skilled metalwork masters, using repoussé techniques to produce the intricate designs. Alas my metalwork work uses a range of items from Lee Valleys 'Tansu range', and reworked hasps, staples and hinges, purchased off the AliExpress website. Most of the later were then sprayed black to match the Lee Valley items.
The outer chest together with the doors and drawer fronts are finished with an oil-based satin polyurethane. Some parts have been stained . The originals would have used urushi lacquer.
Stand The chest would normally have been carried ashore in an outer Paulownia box and placed on the floor, in a typical Japanese working fashion.
However, I have given this one a stand. Its design is based on the form of a traditional Japanese Tori gate, seen at the entrance to many Japanese temples and shrines. The flat 'feet' are a typical Japanese table element, used to prevent table legs digging into and damaging the traditional Tatami mat floor coverings. The stand is made of Jarrah and has a pull-out sliding shelf as somewhere to place the contents removed from the chest.
Thank you for looking - I hope you managed to follow the description, and enjoyed it as much as I did making it.
