tansu

The two characters, 箪 and 笥, appear to have initially represented objects with separate functions: the storage of food and the carrying of firewood. Since the radical for 竹 appears in each of these characters, it may be surmised that bamboo, and not wood, was the original material used in tansu. Woods commonly used in tansu included,. Tansu are collectable, and many collectors focus on finding genuine antique tansu. There are just a few workshops who produce tansu in imitation of the classic antiques, due to the high cost of materials and the very low prices of second-hand tansu. Larger chests are sometimes reduced in size, particularly futon chests, step chests and other chests with deep drawers. Some reproduction tansu have been made in Korea using elm veneer.

• Illustration — Ryobiraki tansu being carried by hired porters. Woodblock print, Utagawa Toyokuni, 1807 Tansu were rarely used as stationary furniture. Consistent with traditional Japanese interior design, which featured a number of movable partitions, allowing for the creation of larger and smaller rooms within the home, tansu would need to be easily portable, and were not visible in the home except at certain times for specific situations. Tansu were typically kept in kura (storehouses) adjacent to homes or businesses, in nando (storage rooms), in oshiire (house closet alcoves), and on choba (a raised platform area of a shop). Tansu would also be kept on some sengokubune (coastal ships). Mobility was obtained through the use of attached wheels, iron carry handles or protruding structural upper rails for lifting. Because the Edo period was feudal in its socio-economic structure, rules concerning the ownership of goods dominated all classes, from peasant to samurai. Travelling was regulated and conspicuous consumption discouraged through sumptuary laws. Tansu from this time primarily reflect the class and occupation of the owner rather than any regionally inspired originality. With the coming of the Meiji Restoration of imperial authority in 1868, and the gradual disintegration of the rigid class structure, distinctive regional characteristics in tansu construction and design began to flourish.

• Illustration — Nagamochi kuruma wheeled trunks are the oldest documented category of tansu. • Illustration — Edo citizens trying to escape advancing flames with their chests on wheels during the Great Fire of Meireki in 1657. Woodblock print taken from the Musashi Abumi published in 1661. • Illustration — Merchant's house from the Edo to Meiji periods During the Edo period (1603–1867), the type of tansu a person owned and used was largely determined by social class. A series of boxes with several long drawers for the storage of sword blades. They were used primarily by blade polishers. Most often the case wood of choice was Paulownia tomentosa to help protect blades from oxidization in the humid summer months. The light weight of the wood also made it easier to move around between samurai customers. Apothecary chests with many small drawers to contain medicinal herbs. Because the chests/boxes often needed to be carried by itinerant salesmen, they were often constructed with light-weight kiri (paulownia), or sugi (cedar) wood, and utilized iron hardware only sparingly.

During the Meiji period (1868–1911), the design of tansu developed further, seeing more regional diversification following the abolition of the feudal class system in Japan. Tansu in Kyoto style were known for a sophisticated opaque lacquering technique called tama nuri. Tansu featuring lacquered flowers, auspicious symbols and motifs, well-rendered by craftsmen from Wajima on the Noto Peninsula, were a popular status symbol.

• Illustration — Kakesuzuri funa dansu were Edo period shipboard chests for seals, money, charts and documents. were used by the captain or owner of small coastal trading vessels licensed by the feudal shogunate to transport rice. These vessels would travel from the bountiful but remote countryside to the teeming cities on the kitamae route between Osaka and Hokkaido through the Inland Sea and up the Japan Sea coast. With the enforced closure of the country in 1633 and a prohibition against the construction of ships with a keel, more than two masts and a cargo capacity exceeding 89,760 L (2,550 bushels of rice) in 1636, the inadvertently crippled the transport of rice grown on Japanese lands, resulting in shortages and even riots in some urban areas. The problem was largely alleviated through reforms of the coastal navigation infrastructure and regulations suggested by Kawamura Zuiken in 1670. Among his implemented recommendations was the designation of reliable sea transporters of government rice as goyochonin (merchants representing the interests of the shogunate). As well, he convinced the authorities to allow properly designated vessels to trade for their own account at coastal towns en route. Though most certainly an inducement to shipping traders, there was a physical constraint that stood in the way of predictable success. The ships, though impressive in construction, were usually under 90 ft in length, with a scant crew of eleven or less. Coastal townspeople were not always impressed when these mariners arrived. There is evidence that from the Kyōhō era of Edo (1716–1735), specific designs of elaborate cabinetry began to be used on the kitamae route. Well into the Meiji period, when a sengokubune (1,000 koku ship) would arrive at a coastal town for trading, the crew would ceremoniously off load the captain/owner's personal tansu to be then positioned strategically at the place where negotiations would be held, thus lending a calculated air of affluence and respectability to the visitor's aura. Funa-dansu evolved into three categories of design: • Kakesuzuri: A seals and money chest with a single hinged door often covered by intricate iron plating, with multiple interior drawers or door covered compartments. • Hangai: A clothing chest with a single drop-fit door. Often made as a set of two identical chests, designed so one could be placed on top of the other, then locked together. • Cho-bako: A chest for accounting and writing related materials. Often rendered in many different configurations, some of which included the following features: • Kendon-buta: A drop-fit door cut into the case, used to hide a money box. • Kobiraki-do: A small swinging door in the lower-right corner. • Ryobiraki-do: Double doors with half-faced hinges on the lower half of the box. • Dezura hikidashi: One or two drawers, exposed to the exterior. • Hiki-do: Removable double sliding doors, running the full width of the box, appearing on the top third or middle third of the box. • Zuri-do: Removable single sliding door in the lower half of the box, in the lower-left. Typically appeared with a kobiraki-do. Funa-dansu that were intended for shipboard use were always constructed of Zelkova serrata for all exterior exposures, with Paulownia wood for interior compartments and drawer or box linings.

• Illustration — Sendai-dansu for kimono with zelkova wood; note the elaborate ironwork, handles on side for transportation, and lockable compartment. • Illustration — Detail of lockable compartment of a sendai-dansu Although decorative to the contemporary eye, tansu hardware remained largely functional through the Meiji period. Because the joinery of cases was simple and thus flexible to facilitate structural integrity during movement from place to place, hardware placement at vulnerable points was consistent with the need for reliability. Until the introduction of iron plate pressing from England in the 1880s, all iron for hardware was forged. With the introduction of Western technology, tansu hardware could now be easily made more decorative, with creative embellishments as well as functional ones. • Herikanagu: Edge hardware, lining the edges and corners of a tansu. • Obikanagu: "Sash hardware" which spans a face of the tansu, such as the top, or the face of a cabinet door. • Sumikanagu: Drawer or drawer-corner hardware, appearing at the corners of drawer faces. Generally these match their associated edge hardware. • Mochiokuri: A carrying handle, generally a loop appearing on the side near the top. • Sao-toshi: A different type of carrying loop, usually sliding, which was designed to hold a pole when used with its mate on the other side. • Meita: Lock jamb plate • Sashikomijo: Sliding-door lock •: Vertical locking bar • Hikite: Drawer pull • Zagane: An "escutcheon", or flange, surrounding the contact point of a drawer pull. • Toshi-zagane: Back plate for a drawer pull • Choban: Hinge • Kasugai: Staple affixing hardware to the wood • Omotejo: A single-action lock using a split spring for activation. For unlocking only. • Urajo: A double-action lock mechanism of foreign origin dating from the 1860s.

• Illustration — A modern interpretation and a traditional sendai-dansu chest in the Prince Consort Gallery, V&A, London (2024) Tansu finishes fall into two categories: dry and lacquered. For a dry finish, clay or chalk powder was rubbed into the soft wood surface (Paulownia, Cryptomeria or cypress) then burnished with an Eulalia root whisk. For lacquer (Rhus verniciflua), application could be only for sealing the plain wood to enhance a natural visible grain or for the creation of a perfect opaque surface.