TOKYO TOKYO.—At the 35th exhibition of the Tokyo Carvers’ Association (of which a notice appeared in our December issue) an important feature was the recent work of Asahi-Gyokuzan, of Kyoto, now in the eighty-third year of his age. Extremely interesting was a set of twelve incense boxes representing the twelve months of the year with appropriate designs for each month. Incredible as it may seem, he produced this set at the age of 8s, making one box each month of the year. In the reproduction, the middle one in the front line represents January, with February on the right ; the others follow in the order of the months. eeeea January.—As sho-chiku-bai (sho meaning  » pine, » chiku  » bamboo, » bai  » plum « ) constitute the New Year’s decoration, Gyokuzan has chosen bark of pine tree for the lid of the incense box, in the centre of which was carved a plum blossom, and the body of the case was of bamboo root. The combination of there three plants has been extremely popular among the people of Nippon and lavishly used in the scheme of all kinds of decorations. e e a February was represented by a hôju (a flaming jewel), a gem which is supposed to enable its possessor to gratify all his desires. The custom still prevails among the painters of Nippon of drawing hôju on 52 a sheet of paper as the first trial with his brush on New Year’s Day, and New Year’s Day according to the luhar calendar, which is still constantly referred to, falls generally in February of the solar calendar. It is also called hoshi-no-tama (a gem of a star), and a long-established festival of worshipping the star is still observed in certain sections of the country on the i 3th of February. The artist has suggested the conventional form of hôju in this case by carving on a root of bamboo. a e March is appropriately represented by a peach carved in antlers. Peach blossoms are inseparable from the observation of the  » Doll’s Festival, » one of the Five Festivals of the Year known as Gosekku, which falls on the third day of the third month of the year. So closely connected are they that it is often called the  » Festival of the Peach Blossoms. » The title given to this incense box is  » Sen-to, » or  » Peach of Lon-gevity, » as it often stands for furii fushi (never-old and deathless), there being a belief in the Far East that the tree, leavés, fruits and the kernel of the peach possess a special medicinal value. e a e April.—The carved design of a svastika, a Buddhistic symbol, on the lid of the incense box made of teak wood, indicates the birth of the Buddha which occurred on the 8th of April. The symbol is often found PAULOWNIA WOOD BRAZIER, INLAID WITH WOOD, METAL AND MOTHER-OF-PEARL. BY KIUCH1-SEI£0