National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

　　This hanging lantern made from forged iron was handed down to the Nyohōji Temple in Fukushima Prefecture. The shade and legs are shaped like kudzu leaves with heart(boar’s eyes)-shaped openwork. There are two single swing doors for a fire box. One of the openings are cut bronze openwork with a diagonal lattice design in a checkered pattern and the other has a net design in the same pattern. A technique known as mon’yō sukashi (a pattern is cut away in relief leaving some of the original material as background) is applied to the remaining four walls around the fire box and each has openwork with design of water plantains and mandarin orange patterns, cherry and oxalis patterns, pine and bamboo, and plum blossoms patterns, and bamboo fence and chrysanthemum patterns. The transom, the upper part of the fire box, also has openwork. The following Chinese phrases are inscribed on the transom: 奥州会津稲荷之庄如法寺之御堂之金, 燈爐之寄進大旦那鍛冶渡邊孫兵衛, 長吉作内□取持猪野弥五良房宗金之, 旦那永禄七年甲子五月十七日奉懸之也 and 當住寺頼真之御代鍍旦那長治太良衛門通□（両） and another Chinese phrase, 奉執金剛神大槻形部少輔与定, is also inscribed on the sacred jewels (hōju) placed on the top of the roof. According to this inscription, this hanging lantern was dedicated to Shukongōshin (Skt. Vajrapāṇi) and enshrined in the Nyohōji Temple in Eiroku 7 (1564).