Three lacquerware boxes with traditional designs: carp swiming, crane and curled koi.

The boxes each have a bottom and top piece, and the interior is either goldleaf lacquer or silverleaf lacquer. The exteriors are black lacquer and gold or silverleaf paint. The Koi Box is slightly iridescent.

Lacquerware is made by first carving boxes or other objects of wood, and then by painting the boxes with the sap of the Japanese lacquer tree. The painting is done by hand, by "masters" of the art: the resulting objects are very expensive.

Typically, maki-e boxes are used to hold small items of value, such as netsuke, or jewelry.