Nōgaku Makie Soup Bowls in Black Japanese Lacquer

　These are soup bowls which have been passed down within the Hibiya Family (日比谷家). Inside the wooden box used to store these bowls has the date of September of the 7th year of the Bunsei era (1824) engraved on it. It seems that the lids and bowls for these 20 bowls depict a story. Moreover, on the inside of each lid and bowl there is a painting of a flower-shaped family crest placed in a hexagonal border. These bowls were used to serve soups for special customers for 150 years between the late Edo period (1603–1868) (around 1826) and the beginning of the Shōwa era (1926–1989).

All Japanese names in this translation follow the Japanese order: surname-name, and all Japanese names and words follow the Hepburn romanization method.