Cabinet
Category
Furniture
Date
1720 - 1750
Materials
Pine, lacquer, copper, iron and gold leaf
Measurements
60.4 x 69.6 x 42.8 cm
Order this imageCollection
Chastleton House, Oxfordshire
NT 1429949
Summary
A black lacquer cabinet, Japanese, late seventeenth century. Decorated on the exterior of the doors in gold and other colours on black with cranes among reeds, with an oval copper lock plate and related hinges and mounts and with handles on the sides, on a low, slightly spreading base with lobed and pointed aprons, the interior with an arrangement of eight variously-shaped drawers decorated in silver on speckled ‘pear skin ground’ (nashiji) lacquer with fence, net and flower motifs, the interior of the doors similarly decorated with flowers and bamboo. Placed on top of (and intended to be seen as en suite with) English chest of drawers NT 1430004.
Full description
Portuguese merchants were the first Europeans to commission lacquer objects in Japan in the early sixteenth century, decorated with Japanese motifs, but using European forms such as cabinet with swing doors and drawers. During the seventeenth century Japanese lacquer cabinets also became popular in northern Europe, being imported by the Dutch and English ‘East India’ maritime trading companies. Emile de Bruijn, Assistant National Curator (Decorative Art) – May/June 2024
Provenance
The lower section F/78