Flower Basket with Natural Bamboo Handle and Antique Arrow Shafts
1920s-1930s, Japan
Bamboo, rattan, lacquer and gold foil
Size: 20 x 8 x 7¾ in. (51 x 20 x 19.5 cm)
Fukakusa no aki (Autumn in the Woods) (detail), 1920
Pair of two-panel folding screens: mineral colors and gold wash on silk
Size each 78¼ x 68 in. (199 x 173 cm)
Set of Paper Box, Box for Writing Utensils, and Box for Brushes with Design of Ferns
1920s, Japan
Maki-e gold lacquer on wood, silver rims
Size: paper box 4¾ x 12½ x 15¾ in. (12.2 x 31.7 x 40.4 cm)
Size writing box: 1¾ x 7½ x 9¾ in. (4.4 x 19 x 24.8 cm)
Size small box: 1¼ x 3½ x 8¼ in. (3.4 x 9.2 x 21.3 cm)
Young Woman Beneath a Flowering Cherry Tree (detail), 1920s-1930s
Hanging scroll; ink, mineral colors, and gofun (calcified crushed shell) on silk
Size overall 83½ x 18¼ in. (212 x 46.5 cm) Size image 49½ x 13 in. (125.5 x 33 cm)
Lacquer Folding Screen with Roof Tiles, 1952
Maki-e gold and colored lacquer on wood with shell inlays
Size 22¾ x 71¾ x ¾ in. (57.7 x 182.2 x 1.7 cm)
T-4811
An Afternoon Nap, 1920s
Japan Pair of two-panel folding screens; ink, mineral pigments, shell powder and gold on paper
Size each screen: 71½ x 71½ in. (181.5 x 181.5 cm)
Pine Tree in the Snow
1920s, Japan
Hanging scroll painting
Ink, mineral pigments, shell powder and gold wash on silk
Overall size 87¾ x 26¼ in. (223 x 67 cm)
Image size 55¾ x 20 in. (141.5 x 51 cm)
Opening & Cocktail: Sunday, June 14, 5-9pm (by reservation only) VIP Day: Monday, June 15, 10am-7:30pm (by reservation only) Public Days: June 16 –17, 11am-7pm; June 18, 11am-6pm Elisabeth Church (Offene Kirche Elisabethen), Elisabethenstrasse 14, Basel, Switzerland
We are delighted to return to the second edition of MAZE/Design Basel! Ourexhibition will focus on Japanese bamboo baskets by the great masters of the 20th century while also featuring Japanese gold lacquer boxes, ceramics, scroll paintings, and Japanese folding screens.
If you’re in Switzerland during Art Basel week, be sure to visit us in the Elisabethenkirche, opposite the Kunsthalle Basel. Welook forward to seeing you soon!
May 13 – June 26, 2026
Reception: Tuesday, June 2, 5:30pm to 7:30pm
We are delighted to invite you to our new exhibition Japanese Ceramics and Modern Paintings, on view through June 26.
Celebrating one of the most enduring and vital traditions in Japanese art, the exhibition brings together ceramic works spanning from fifteenth-century stoneware vessels to refined contemporary porcelains, tracing over 10,000 years of artistic innovation and aesthetic continuity.
Complementing the ceramics is a selection of Japanese screen and scroll paintings from the first half of the twentieth century, creating a rich dialogue between material, form, and modern expression.
Thomsen gallery, located in a townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, offers important Japanese paintings and works of art to collectors and museums worldwide. The gallery specializes in Japanese screens and scrolls; in early Japanese tea ceramics from the medieval through the Edo periods; in masterpieces of ikebana bamboo baskets; and in gold lacquer objects. It further specializes in post-war ink art and Gutai art as well as contemporary art by select artists, such as the internationally renowned Japanese ceramic artist Sueharu Fukami, the paper artist Kyoko Ibe, and the lacquer artist Yoshio Okada.
The gallery is owned by Erik and Cornelia Thomsen, who live and work in New York. Erik has been a dealer in Japanese art since 1981; born to Danish parents and raised in Japan, he is fluent in Japanese and was the first foreigner to apprentice to an art dealer in Japan. They have three children, Julia, Anna, and Georg.
