Tixi is a type of carved lacquer technique where the artisan carves through layers of carefully built-up lacquer of at least two colours using various decorative motifs, often repeated in a modular fashion. The technique was especially popular during the Song and Yuan periods, when it was used to produce many utilitarian forms such as bowls, dishes, boxes, cup stands, and brush or fan holders. Perhaps due to their less functional but more symbolic role, tixi fly whisks were not produced in great number. There appears to be only one other tixi fly whisk of this design, which is in the Kyushu National Museum, see The Colors and Forms of Song and Yuan China: Featuring Lacquerwares, Ceramics, and Metalwares, Tokyo, 2004, no. 119, where it is illustrated along with a tixi brush holder with waves design, no. 120, and a longer and slightly narrower tixi fly whisk with ruyi motifs, no. 121, all from the Southern Song period. The current fly whisk and the Kyushu Museum example have a wider mid-section compared to the other holders, allowing for a more ergonomic grasp, and both are distinguished by the fluidity and depth of their carving.

The present fly whisk is reputedly brought to Japan in 1676 by the Chinese monk Jiang Xinyue (1639-1677), Dharma name, Xingchou, when he fled from the aftermath of a failed coup d’etat alongside Wu Sangui against the Qing government. Jiang took on the name Toko Shinetsu after he moved to Japan, and was very active in both the Buddhist community and the art scene. He received patronage from Tokugawa Mitsukuni (1628-1701), who was the grandson of the first shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the patriarch of the Mito Tokugawa family. Mitsukuni was a progressive ruler who deeply admired Chinese culture and Confucian ideology, and invited Toko Shinetsu to become the abbot of the family’s Ming-style temple Gionji. The Gionji temple has a scroll dated 1670 showing the appointment of Toko Shinetsu as the 35th abbot of the Caodong sect of Souchang school when he was in Hangzhou. It is interesting to note that the content of the scroll mentions that a fly whisk was given to Toko Shinetsu upon the appointment, which may possibly be the present lot. A portrait of Toko Shinetsu by the Edo-period painter Tsubaki Chinzan is in the Tokyo National Museum, where the monk is shown holding a lacquer fly whisk much like the present lot.