Inro decorated with tanuki and crab, and ojime

Inro

An inro (lit. "stamp case") is a traditional Japanese case for holding small objects, suspended from the obi (sash) worn around the waist when wearing a kimono. They are often highly decorated with various materials such as lacquer and various techniques such as maki-e, and are more decorative than other Japanese lacquerware.

Lacquer

Lacqerwear(shikki), is a Japanese craft with a wide range of fine and decorative arts Japanese lacquerware is the diversity of lacquerware using a decoration technique called maki-e in which metal powder is sprinkled to attach to lacquer. The invention of various maki-e techniques in Japanese history expanded artistic expression, and various tools and works of art such as inro are highly decorative.

Maki-e

Maki-e (literally: sprinkled picture (or design)) is a Japanese lacquer decoration technique in which pictures, patterns, and letters are drawn with lacquer on the surface of lacquerware, and then metal powder such as gold or silver is sprinkled and fixed on the surface of the lacquerware.