Exceptional, rare and completely restored wooden Sado ishô dansu 衣装箪笥 (cabinet of drawers) with elaborately decorated open work iron hardware, in two sections. Fully restored, cleaned and waxed. The exterior is made of hinoki cypress wood. varnished in a sought after warm brown hue, a colour that we like to call ‘golden oak’. This soft underground lets the refined hardware stand out even more. The upper part consists of two large drawers. The lower part with two drawers of different size and a hinged door. The interior behind the door with three small drawers. All the drawers are very deep and have a lot of volume, for easy storage. They run very smoothly as well. The cabinet has extensively decorated hardware. The corner pieces of the drawers with stylized pine trees. The large decorative lock plates each with their own unique design of different auspicious animals; a peacock, a phoenix, a crane and a minogame. The hinged door decorated with different attributes of the Seven Gods of Fortune 七福神 (Shichifukujin). The large knobs are in the shape of chrysanthemums 菊 (kiku). The drawers are equipped with sturdy “fiddlehead-fern”-bail handles with matching back plates decorated with pine trees as well. The sides with four pole-carrying handles in total, one on each side of the upper and lower part for easy transport and “locking” the upper section to the lower part. This high quality ishô dansu is in a very good and completely restored condition. Please see the photos for a condition reference. Delivered without the keys. Height 106.3 cm, Width 109.4 cm, Depth 45.3 cm. These kind of cabinets originate from the island Sado 佐渡, which lies in the Niigata Prefecture 新潟県. Tansu is the traditional mobile storage cabinetry indigenous to Japan. Tansu were rarely used as stationary furniture. Consistent with Japan's minimalist aesthetic, traditional homes appeared rather empty. Tansu were not visible in the home except at certain times for specific situations. They were kept in kura (storehouses) adjacent to homes or businesses, in nando (storage rooms), in oshiire (house closet alcoves), on choba (raised platform area of a shop) and on some sengokubune (coastal ships). Mobility was obtained through the use of attached wheels, iron handles for carrying or protruding structural upper rails for lifting. (From Wikipedia) When shipped we will add a certificate of authenticity. #masterpieces