Estimate

20.000 - 25.000

Session 2

20 July 2022

Hammer Price

Description

Black lacquered wood, gold and ray skin decoration
Two doors and various miscellaneous drawers
Gilt copper hardware
Japan, Edo Period, (ca. 1630-1650)

31x42x28,3 cm

Category

Objects

A NAMBAN CHEST

Rare Edo Period (c.1630-1640) urushi lacquered and gilt (maki-e) two door Namban table cabinet, sprinkled in ray skin (same) denticles, with gilt copper mounts and hardware. Following an Iberian prototype, when opened this cabinet reveals an arrangement of eight drawers organized over four tiers. One single top drawer with two identical smaller drawers below and, on the two lower tiers, a central double height arch decorated drawer, as in European cabinets, sided by pairs of overlapping smaller drawers. This cabinet typology, designed to store small precious objects, jewellery, documentation and correspondence, was common in 16th century European domestic interiors, and a mandatory piece of utilitarian furniture for traders and officials based in the Far East. Produced in a variety of precious exotic materials such as tortoiseshell, ivory or gilt lacquer, they were admired and coveted in Europe, for their aesthetic appeal and manufacturing quality. Similarly to other Namban pieces produced after the banishment of the Portuguese, the decoration of this cabinet alludes to a textile or rug pattern, with a central field sprinkled in ray skin denticles (samegawa or samekawa) framed by a wide decorative border. On the front panel, a large lacquer lozenge decorated with a pheasant within vegetation, occupies the centre of the ray skin field. Persimmon (Diospyros kaki) shaped lacquered roundels occupy the centres of both side panels, with decorative compositions of bellflowers or kikyo (Platycodon grandiflorum) on the left hand side and a large flower, probably a magnolia or mokuren (Magnolia liliiflora), on the right. Pieces characterised by the decorative use of ray skin in their manufacture are defined as samegawa nanban, a specific group within the Japanese furniture production. Only the hard grains or denticles (same), extracted from the decomposed fish skin, are used in this technique known as samegawa-nuri. These denticles are sprinkled on to the selected surface, fixed and hardened by an urushi lacquering process and pumice polished to obtain the desired finish. Although the term “same” is mentioned as early as 1603 in the Japanese– Portuguese Dictionary “Vocabulário da Lingoa de Iapam”, published by Jesuit Missionaries, where it is defined as ray skin used in lining sword handles and scabbards, the earliest references to this type of furniture are made in c.1635- 1645, in “facturen”, the cargo manifests from the Dutch East Indies Company (V.O.C.), in which they are highly praised. (1) The refined gilt decoration applied to this cabinet, known as maki-e, literally “sprinkled painting”, was a technique common throughout the Momoyama (1568-1600) and early Edo periods. (2) It is at this time of cultural miscegenation that a specific export lacquer is developed, combining mother-ofpearl inlay with a type of decoration known as hiramaki-e, and referred to as nanban makie or nanban shitsugei. The term nanban, also written namban or namban-jin (literally “southern barbarians”), of Chinese origin, refers not only to the Portuguese or Spanish traders, missionaries and sailors that arrived in Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries, but also to a group of lacquered objects and others produced in Japan, for the internal market and for export, reflecting a Western taste and following European prototypes, such as the present two door cabinet that hints at Dutch models. Export Namban objects combine Japanese techniques, materials and languages with European styles and typologies. A table cabinet of similar production, sprinkled in ray skin denticles but with mother-of pearl inlays, was recorded in the former collection Francisco Hipólito Raposo in Lisbon. (3) 1 See: Oliver Impey, Christiaan J. A. Jörg, Japanese Export Lacquer, 1580 – 1850, Amsterdam, Hotei Publishing, 2005, pp. 245 – 247. 2 See: Teresa Canepa, Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer. China and Japan and their Trade with Western Europe and the New World, 1500 – 1644, London, Paul Holberton publishing, 2016; e Alexandra Curvelo, "Nanban Art: what's past is prologue", in Victoria Weston (ed.), Portugal, Jesuits and Japan. Spiritual Beliefs and Earthly Goods (cat.), Chestnut Hill, MA, McMullen of Art, 2013, pp. 71 – 78. 3 See: Maria Helena Mendes Pinto, Lacas Namban em Portugal. Presença portuguesa no Japão, Lisboa, Edições Inapa, 1990, p. 92.