Lacquered sheath - Urushi-nuri sheath

...In addition to the practical decoration of black lacquer, which was the most common throughout the ages, there are also ornate ones with pear-skin, ikakeji, maki-e, and mother-of-pearl, as well as ones wrapped in sharkskin, wrapped in gold, silver, and copper plates, or covered with thin openwork plates. As such, scabbards were decorated in a variety of ways, but lacquered scabbards from the Edo period in particular show an extremely wide variety of techniques, and they occupy a noteworthy position in the history of lacquer crafts. Furthermore, there were regulations for the lacquered scabbards of tachi swords based on official rank, with nobles using pear-skin maki-e and mother-of-pearl, those of the fifth rank and above using pear-skin maki-e, Kebiishi using ikakeji, and those of the sixth rank and below using black lacquer. ...

*Some of the terminology that refers to "lacquered sheath" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…また装飾は実用的で各時代を通じて最も多い黒漆塗のほか，梨地，沃懸地（いかけじ），蒔絵，螺鈿などをほどこした華麗なもの，また鮫革包や金銀銅板を蛭巻（ひるまき）したり，あるいは透彫りした薄板を伏せたものも現存する。このように鞘にはさまざまな加飾が行われているが，とくに江戸時代の漆塗鞘には非常に多種の技法がみられ，漆工芸史上も注目すべき位置をしめている。なお，太刀の漆塗鞘には官位による規定があり，公卿は梨地蒔絵螺鈿，五位以上は梨地蒔絵，検非違使（けびいし）は沃懸地，六位以下は黒漆とされていた。…

※「漆塗鞘」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報