Momoyama period (late 16th century), the painting (late 17th-early 18th century)

The devotional image in the shrine offered here was painted on copper by an anonymous Italian artist probably in the late 17th - early 18th century, after a lost original by Antonio Allegri da Correggio (1489-1534), ‘The Holy Family of the Cradle’ and known from various versions including that in Petworth House, Sussex. The lacquer case is decorated in lacquer and mother-of-pearl inlay with floral motifs common to Japanese Nanban (‘Southern Barbarian’) lacquers. Mother-of-pearl was used to reflect candlelight in dark interiors. The floral design is elegant and simple, enhancing the intimate painting at the centre.

The lacquer artist made extensive use of the harigaki technique: a sharp needle-like instrument (hari) was used to incise details into the lacquer before it was fully dried. The gold and silver hiramaki-e (powdered gold and silver decoration in low or flat relief), left unpolished, provides stylistic and technical links to lacquers preserved at Kodaiji Temple, Kyoto, the mausoleum completed in 1606 for Kitano Mandokoro, the widow of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1568–1595). The Kodaiji Temple lacquers were probably originally made for Hideyoshi’s nearby Fushimi Castle in the 1590s, but were repurposed for the mausoleum.