Box
Category
Objets de vertu
Date
1700 - 1799
Materials
Lacquer
Measurements
40 mm (Height) x 75 mm (Depth); 95 mm (Length)
Order this imageCollection
Charlecote Park, Warwickshire
NT 533588.1
Summary
Box (kobako or ‘small box’, lacquer, of ‘melon-form’ outline (quatrefoil), made in Japan, probably eighteenth century. It is decorated on the lid with a branch with three peaches against a ground of fundame (matt gold) with areas of kirigane (rectangular- or square-cut gold flakes) and on the sides with sprays of flowers on the same ground.
Full description
Small Japanese lacquer boxes (called kobako or ‘small box’) were often transported to Europe through private trade by servants of the Dutch East India Company (i). They were particularly desirable amongst French nobility (ii). The complex shape and decoration of this box, involving a degree of trompe l’oeil or illusionism, is similar to the shape and decoration of several Japanese lacquer boxes known to have been owned by Queen Marie-Antoinette of France (1755-93) (iii). This box is part of the collection once belonging to William Thomas Beckford (1760-1844). Beckford was a fourth-generation enslaver and absentee plantation landlord. He had inherited fifteen plantations in 1770 and over 1,000 people were enslaved his name (iv). He used the wealth from their labour to curate a collection and build Fonthill Abbey to house it (v). With the decline in sugar profits and lawsuits Beckford was forced to sell his estate and collection in 1822 (vi). Originally intended to be sold at auction, this box was listed in the catalogue as Lot 77 ‘A very rare and beautiful; Gold Japan box, with flowers and fruits in relievo upon gold ground. From the collection of the Duc de Bouillon’ (vii). In 1823, under new ownership, the contents of the Abbey were again put up for auction. This lacquer box was purchased by George Hammond Lucy (1789-1845) as lot 997 for £4.4s (viii). It is likely one of the lacquerware pieces described by Mary Elizabeth Lucy (1803-1890) as ‘on the lacquer table in the billiard room’ in 1862 (ix). This box shares a similar history with NT 533588.2. (i) Oliver Impey and John Whitehead, ‘Japanese Lacquer’ in Derek E. Ostergard, William Beckford 1760-1844: An Eye for the Magnificent, (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 218-219 (ii) Kristina Kleutghen, ‘Imports and limitations: The Taste for Japanese Lacquer in Eighteenth-Century China and France’, Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, Spring 2017 vol.17, no.2, p. 176 (iii) See Monika Kopplin (ed.), Japanische Lacke: Die Sammlung der Königin Marie-Antoinette [Japanese Lacquer: The Collection of Queen Marie-Antoinette], Munich, Hirmer Verlag, in association with Museum für Lackkunst, Münster, 2002, cats. 43 (Château de Versailles, MR 380.64), 52 (Château de Versailles, MR 380.12) and 53 (Château de Versailles, MR 380.38). (iv) William Thomas Beckford.” Legacies of British Slave-Ownership database, UCL, accessed 30/05/2024. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/22232 (v) See Boyd Alexander, (trans. and ed.), Life at Fonthill 1807-1822 With Interludes in Paris and London. From the Correspondence of William Beckford, (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1957); England’s Wealthiest Son: A Study of William Beckford, (London: Centaur Press Lt., 1962); Amy Frost, ‘The Beckford Era’ in Caroline Dakers (ed.), Fonthill Recovered: A Cultural History, (London: UCL Press, 2018), pp. 59-93 (vi) Caroline Dakers ‘The break-up of the Fonthill estate’ in Dakers (ed.), Fonthill Recovered: A Cultural History, (London: UCL Press, 2018), pp. 97-98 (vii) Christie, Manson and Wood, Magnificent Effects at Fonthill Abbey, Wilts. 1822, p.27; https://archive.org/details/frick-31072002719534/page/n71/mode/2up (accessed 1 May 2024) (viii) Warwickshire County Record Office, L6/1116 (ix) Mary Elizabeth Lucy, Biography of the Lucy Family at Charlecote Park in the County of Warwick, (London: privately printed by Emily Faithful & Co, 1862), p.131.