Chest
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1700
Materials
Softwood, brass, Coromandel (kuan cai) lacquer, paint, oil gilding
Measurements
77 x 141 x 64.5 cm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 435108
Summary
A lacquer chest, made up in Europe (probably England) using panels of Chinese incised lacquer (kuan cai 款彩 or ‘engraved polychrome’), late 17th or early 18th century. Rectangular, with a flat lid, an oval engraved openwork metal lock plate, the lacquer with rectangular vignettes of birds and flowers and landscapes against a black ground, surrounded by borders with stylised lotus flowers and scrolling foliage, raised on a black-painted plinth.
Full description
The rectangular vignettes of birds and flowers and landscapes seen on this chest are similar to sections of a 12-panel incised lacquer folding screen illustrated in Nicole Brugier, Les lacques de Coromandel, Lausanne, La Bibliothèque des Arts, 2015 (p.143). That screen (with Pelham Galleries, Paris, at the time of publication), partly decorated with painted silk and partly consisting of incised lacquer, has rectangular, portrait-format incised lacquer vignettes along the bottom of each panel, showing either a bird-and-flower or a landscape scene. It seems likely that similar-sized and -themed vignettes were taken from an incised lacquer folding screen to make up the chest under discussion here, with elements of japanning (European lacquer) added to enhance the overall visual unity. A rectangular chest similarly composed of panels of Chinese engraved polychrome lacquer depicting birds and flowers and landscapes, and arranged in a similar composition, was offered for sale at auction at Sotheby's, London, 9 March 2007 ('Mallet at Bourdon House' sale), lot 780. Another rectangular chest apparently with similar Chinese incised lacquer panels, but arranged in a different composition, was sold at Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, 31 August 2022, lot 29. Yet another rectangular chest with Chinese incised lacquer, with a provenance from Raynham Hall, Norfolk, on an early-eighteenth-century gilt gesso stand, was sold at Christie's, London, 24 November 2005, lot 41, but in that case the lacquer is decorated in a different manner, with ‘100 treasures’ and other prestigious and auspicious objects. A further comparable chest made up with Chinese incised lacquer, with a provenance from the Earls of Carlisle, Castle Howard, Yorkshire, is illustrated in Christopher Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall, 1998, vol. III, pp.610–12, cat. 741. Chinese incised lacquer is sometimes called 'Coromandel lacquer' in English, after the Indian coastal region via which it was shipped to Europe. Another name for it is 'Bantam work' after the Javanese region of Banten where the English east India Company had a trading post and which likewise served as an entrepot.
Provenance
Purchased by the National Trust with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), 1984.
References
Brugier 2015: Nicole Brugier, Les lacques de Coromandel, Lausanne 2015, p. 143 Bruijn 2023: Emile de Bruijn, Borrowed Landscapes: China and Japan in the Historic Houses and Gardens of Britain and Ireland, London 2023, pp. 57-8 (fig. 33) Gilbert 1998: Christopher Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall, vol. 3, Leeds 1998, pp. 610–12, cat. 741