Estimate

22.500 - 30.000

Session 2

20 July 2022

Hammer Price

Description

Black lacquered wood of gold, mother-of-pearl, ray skin and gilt copper decoration
Japan, Edo period, (ca.1630-1650)

25x50x24 cm

Category

Objects

Additional Information

Provenance: English private collection

A SMALL CHEST

This small flat top chest of protruding, chamfered edges copying a 1500s European prototype also produced in India, is made in black lacquered wood (urushi) with gold decoration (maki-e) and mother-of-pearl inlays (raden) sprinkled in ray skin (same) denticles. It features a single lockable drawer along the front width and rests on a prominent raised socle decorated with a frieze of gold triangle motifs. The fine gilt copper hardware (kazarikanagu) of floral motifs on a punctured ground known as “fish roe” (nanakoji), include a scalloped and pierced lock escutcheon (aimeita) and its latch, the scalloped drawer lock escutcheon, the side handles and the inner top and front loops for attaching a now missing chain for holding the chest open. Similarly to other lacquered Namban furniture produced after the expelling of the Portuguese from Japan, the chest’s decorative composition is organized in a “carpet-like” pattern, with a ground filled by sprinkled skin ray denticles (samegawa or samekawa) and broad decorative borders of triangle friezes. While on the lateral and back elevations the large grounds are fully coated in sprinkled ray skin, on the front elevation stand out two unfolded fans placed in symmetry and flanking the large lock escutcheon. The one on the left featuring a pair of gold painted birds on a Japanese maple or momizi (Acer palmatum) and the one on the right decorated with flowering plants, perhaps chrysanthemums or kiku (Chrisanthemum morifolium). On the cover surface a large, unfolded fan, equally decorated in gold and mother-of-pearl, featuring a pair of pheasants, possibly a male and a female, a Japanese Camelia, tsubaki or wabisuke (Camellia japonica), and an orange tree, tachibana (Citrus tachibana). The presence of the various pairs of animals suggests the chest’s matrimonial associations, as is the case with much of the Asian furniture produced for exporting to Europe in the 16th and 17th century. When raised, the inner cover surface reveals a flowering plant and an animal (possibly a hare?), contrasting with the other fully black lacquered inner surfaces. Surmounting this imagery, an 1800s gold painted gothic revival scripted inscription “A.R. Eibbs”, an ownership mark for a former owner whose surname was Eibbs, a family originating from Warwickshire in central England. The gold decoration applied onto this chest, known as maki-e, literally “sprinkled painting”, was common in Japan during the Momoyama period (1658-1600) as well as in the early Edo period that follows. It is in this period of mutual acculturation that a specific type of export lacquer emerges, combining mother-of-pearl inlays with a type of decoration known as hiramaki-e and named nanban makie or nanban shitsugei. Namban, or Nanban-jin (literally “Southern Barbarian”) is a Japanese term of Chinese origin that refers to the Portuguese and Spanish that landed in Japan during the 16th and 17th centuries. Namban would also become synonymous of the type of lacquer and other products commissioned in Japan for both the internal market of for exporting copying European prototypes, such as is the case of the present casket, and reflecting the Western taste. Namban style objects made exclusively for exporting, combine Japanese techniques, materials and decorative motifs with European styles and shapes (excepting the case of bento boxes). While domed chests and caskets, writing cases, bento boxes and lecterns are frequent typologies of which various examples survive, this type of flat cover chests, referred in the Dutch literature as kist, are certainly rarer. An analogous chest, with identical lower drawer and fully decorated with gold and mother-of-pearl animals and flowers was in 1990 referred in the José Lico collection in Lisbon. Another example belongs to the Royal Collection, United Kingdom (inv. RCIN 39244). Ray skin sprinkled pieces are rare and include bento boxes, writing desks, two door cabinets and particularly domed chests and caskets. Oliver Impey and Christiaan Jörg, in their work Japanese Export Lacquer do not record examples of flat-topped ray skin or denticle sprinkled decorated chests.

HUGO MIGUEL CRESPO
Centro de História, Universidade de Lisboa

Literature: CANEPA, Teresa, “Namban lacquer for the Portuguese and Spanish missionaries”, Bulletin of Portuguese / Japanese Studies, 18-19, 2009, pp. 253-290. CANEPA, Teresa, Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer. China and Japan and their Trade with Western Europe and the New World, 1500-1644, Londres, Paul Holberton publishing, 2016. CURVELO, Alexandra, “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. IMPEY, Oliver, JÖRG, Christiaan J. A., Japanese Export Lacquer, 1580-1850, Amesterdão, Hotei Publishing, 2005. PINTO, Maria Helena Mendes, Lacas Namban em Portugal. Presença portuguesa no Japão, Lisboa, Edições Inapa, 1990.