Representative of Tatsuaki Kuroda's early period, this was placed on a table at Mikuni-so. The Japanese character for “color” written in shells is placed in the center, surrounded by Japanese motifs of hemp leaves. It was carefully preserved by the Yamamoto household. In his later years, Kuroda established a technique known as yogai raden that uses mother-of-pearl from Mexican abalone shells, and he later applied the technique to tea utensils and hand boxes. This labor-intensive example shows how he had perfected the technique even early on in his career.