The\nlittle craft I\u2019m going to write about is called bonbonniere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the early spring of the 31st year of the Heisei era (2019), a ceremony was held to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the then Emperor\u2019s accession to the throne. Celebrities who were invited to the tea party later appeared on a TV program and presented their confectionery bowls with five-colored konpeito<\/em> (confetti). There was one TV personality who joked around saying he had sold the konpeito<\/em> to his apprentice for a few hundred yen a piece, so some of you may be thinking, \u201cOh, was that the bonbonniere?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bonbonniere, of course, did not originate in Japan. \u201cA container for confectioneries (bonbon)\u201d is what it means in French. In France and Italy, confectioneries are served when celebrating a child\u2019s birth, someone\u2019s wedding, a silver wedding anniversary and on other occasions, and the container \u2013 some are made of glass and come without lids, and some are bags \u2013 used, in French, is what they call the bonbonniere. In Italian, it is called bomboniera. The confetti inside come in five colors, which represent happiness, health, wealth, the well-being of one\u2019s posterity and longevity. You may have noticed that the Japanese word konpeito<\/em> comes from confetti. In present day Japan, at the end of a wedding reception, you would occasionally see the bride and groom handing out dragees in small bags to their guests in front of a gilt folding screen. This way of using the bonbonniere is likely very close to how it is used in Europe, where it\u2019s from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For\nsome reason, the bonbonniere suddenly appeared in the Imperial Household in the\nmiddle of the Meiji era. It became customary for the Imperial Household to have\nthe bonbonniere made as a gift for celebratory occasions. Thereafter, the\nJapanese bonbonniere developed independently from the original, almost\noutpacing the originators. Japan\u2019s \u201cGalapagosization\u201d \u2013 or development of goods\nin isolation from the world market \u2013 was already seen somewhat in the commemorative\ngifts of the Imperial Household in the Meiji era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Japanese bonbonniere is a palm-sized craft with a gorgeous design and of fine workmanship, and usually comes with a silver lid. The shapes and types vary. From the Taisho era to the first half of the second decade of the Showa era (1912 – 1935), they became extremely popular, and were produced and distributed not only by the Imperial Household and the houses of an Imperial prince (miyake)<\/em>, but also by the peerage, companies and ordinary households. Here, we can get a glimpse of how the Imperial Household in the Meiji era made painstaking efforts to reconcile Japan\u2019s acceptance of Western culture, and protection of Japanese traditional culture and domestic industries. A lot of what I will write about has to do with this balancing act, but we can come back to that later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 20th year of the Showa era (1945), Japan\u2019s political system underwent a major change due to its defeat in the Pacific War. In 1947, 11 miyake<\/em> other than the houses of the three princes Chichibu, Takamatsu and Mikasa, who were younger brothers of the then Emperor, left the Imperial Household. In the same year, the Constitution of Japan came into force and the peerage system was abolished. Under such circumstances, the custom of bestowing the bonbonniere was almost forgotten. However, even then, the Imperial Household continued to make the bonbonniere for auspicious occasions. The latest craft coming from a culture that the Imperial Household developed is the bonbonniere commemorating the 30th anniversary of the enthronement of the Heisei-era Emperor I referred to in the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seen from the top, this bonbonniere is round-shaped, and on the lid you will see the golden Imperial crest of the \u201ceight-fold chrysanthemum with 16 leaves facing up\u201d shining brilliantly and also crossed chrysanthemum leaves. The container is 5.6 centimeters in diameter and 3 centimeters in height, and will easily rest on the palm of your hand. Although it is silver in color, it is not made of pure silver but plated with silver, unfortunately. When the Imperial Household Agency started the competitive bidding process in October 2019 for the making of the container, they said it was for \u201cmanufacturing brass bonbonnieres plated with silver and with the Imperial crest.\u201d The bonbonniere was to contain konpeito<\/em> in five colors and fine argent (or silver dragees, which are coated with real silver and used as toppings for cakes and cookies.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bombonnieres to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the enthronement were produced in the 11th year of the Heisei era (1999), but they were identical in shape and design with those for the 30th anniversary. Without the piece of paper inside which says, \u201c30th Anniversary of the Enthronement\u201d and \u201cNovember in the 11th Year of the Heisei era,\u201d it would be difficult to distinguish the two. This may be trouble for researchers in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There exists another bonbonniere to commemorate the 30th anniversary. It is also round-shaped, and on the lid there is the golden crest at the center of a mitsuwa<\/em> triple-ring pattern. Triple or threefold is sanju in Japanese, which is a homonym for another word meaning \u201cthirty.\u201d The 30th anniversary container was designed this way for the intended pun. It is 5.9 centimeters in diameter and 3.4 centimeters in height, and made of pure silver. A small number of this type was produced for the Emperor\u2019s family to hand out to their relatives at a private feast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Minako Nagasako \/ Curator, Gakushuin Univ. Museum of History With the enthronement of the New Emperor, we h […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[407],"tags":[44,46,45],"class_list":["post-513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","tag-bonbonniere","tag-imperial_family","tag-imperial_household"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/sweetsinside-1.jpg\")
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