Against the light blue background of the interior of this cigarette box, we can see wild chrysanthemum stems with cream-colored corollas and leaves colored black, yellow, and red. The lid is slightly convex and is decorated with a pavé of stylized lozenge-shaped chrysanthemums (kikubishi) in white, gray, light blue, light green and cream with tiny buttons of bright red. The gilt feet depict bundles formed by three bamboo segments.

Component tools: Tray with upright sides - Mirror easel - Writing box with overlapping compartments - Combs holder - Comb with wide teeth - Comb with fine teeth - Tray for hair conditioner - Jar for hair oil - Perfume box - Box for dust

The pumpkin-shaped treat box was made to be employed during the tea ceremony by artist Ikeda Taishin (1825-1903), appointed Imperial Household Artist (Teishitsu Gigei-in帝室技芸員) in 1896.
It’s been made out of a pumpkin exocarp: the shell has been cut transversely so that it could be used as a lid, while the insides of the pumpkin have been emptied out, levigated and let dry. The decoration in relief on a natural wood background have been made using thick, carved mother of pearl, powder sprinkled with gold, shiny, opaque and granulated black lacquer (ishime), grey dry lacquer powder in two hues imitating inlays in pewter and tin foil. The design represents a fresh, intact pumpkin flower and two pumpkin leaves, one shiny and plump, the other brownish, rotten. The inside of the box is coated in black semi-matte black lacquer with a greasy, waxy look.

Gollum is one of the most loved and hated characters of Middle-Earth, created by the writer J.R.R. Tolkien in the ‘50s of the last century. In “The Hobbit”, the novel written before “The Lord of The Rings”, he wasn’t one of the main characters. Tolkien must have understood his potential because, in his best-known novel, he not only gave him a starring role, but he became part of Fantasy history. Gollum appears in several films and radio adaptations of “The Lord of The Rings”. In 1952 Tolkien himself was one of the first to give his voice to Gollum: his interpretation was highly appreciated by the critics. In the trilogy of Peter Jackson, Gollum is a computer-generated character and his voice and moves were performed by the actor Andy Serkis (a polyhedric actor, who gave his moves to King Kong too as well as to the monkey Cesare in the last remake of “The Planet of the Apes”). The character was created following the facial features of Serkis, while his moves were reproduced using a mix between motion capture and the traditional process of keyframing. 

Fun fact – For his performance, Serkis won “best virtual performance” at the MTV Movie Awards. Serkies declared that the desperation and avarice in his acting was based on the experience of heroin addicts. 

The movie “Spider-Man” is inspired to the homonymous comic books by Marvel, created by the imagination of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. It is considered to be one of the best amongst the superhero fiction movies. The movie by Sam Raimi in 2002 was number 3 at the box office. For this reason, other sequels were made in 2004 and in 2007. In 2021, Columbia Pictures produced “The amazing Spiderman”, a revisitation of the previous movies, not linked to the original trilogy. 

Fun fact – Wolverine and Spider-Man together at the cinema. Dream or reality? We came close: during film production, in one of the scenes these two superheroes should have been together. Said cameo appearance was confirmed by Hugh Jackman during an interview, but then the idea was abandoned. What a pity!