Welcome to Artes Japonica

Japanese Antiques

Item of the week

As the name indicates — the art of Japan — we sell a number of antiques which reflect Japan's rich heritage of craftsmanship.

Though we essentially specialize in small chests and boxes, we also offer a small but selective array of what we call "samurai art", that is, antiques which include armour (occasionally armour parts), swords, and the occasional rare and unusual item (battle flags, war fans, jutte).

The boxes we sell include tobacco boxes, funadansu, or sea captains' chests, suzuribako, fudebako and chokinbako. These had a specific purpose and were amazingly designed, especially the funadansu.

Artes Japonica News

BUYER BEWARE! eBay scams

3rd May, 2010

Buyers of samurai and Japanese antiques should be aware that while it's easy to point fingers at some Chinese-based "dealer", recently some have made their way into the Japan-based market. ..more

Spring 2010

26th April, 2010
As usual, we keep continuing to find interesting and ou-of-the-ordinary items, and we look forward to being more active in the months to come. ..more

May/June 2009 Newsletter

23rd January, 2009

As predicted, 2009 has, so far, been very interesting and fruitful for us having found some out-of-the-ordinary items whih our clients always appreciate.
Examples include a JUYO level o-yoroi, a 'kura & abumi' set having begonged to a lord from Kyoto, an Unkai mask, an Edo period gunsen, and a sword with a whopping nagasa of 90m!
Added note (5/25):
The Unkai mask, I've decided to keep. ..more