Box
Category
Objets de vertu
Date
1700 - 1799
Materials
Lacquered wood
Measurements
50 x 150 x 100 mm
Order this imageCollection
Charlecote Park, Warwickshire
NT 534187.1
Summary
One of a pair of boxes (see also 534187.2), lacquer, rectangular with flat bases and lids, probably made in Guangzhou (Canton), China, eighteenth century, decorated on the lids with buildings among rocks and trees in gold on black (the red undercoat showing through in various places), and with sprays of plants and flowers on the sides.
Full description
Japanese lacquer was considered very desirable in Europe, but, because of its high cost, the market for it remained limited, and towards the end of the seventeenth century its importation dwindled (i). Chinese artisans responded to the continuing European demand by beginning to produce lacquer in the Japanese style (known in China as yang cai or ‘foreign lacquer’) for export to the West from the early eighteenth century (ii). This box was possibly bought by George Hammond Lucy (1789-1845) at the Fonthill Abbey sale in 1823. The objects at this sale belonged to William Thomas Beckford (1760-1844). Beckford had made his fortune as an absentee enslaver and plantation landlord. He was the fourth-generation of enslavers and had inherited fifteen plantations and over 1,000 people were enslaved in his name (iii). Using wealth gained from their labour, Beckford amassed a collection of art objects and housed them in the gothic abbey which he had built. Through financial mismanagement, lawsuits, and the decline in sugar profitability, Beckford’s wealth declined (iv). He planned to sell the Abbey and collection by auction in 1822. The auction did not proceed as the entirety of the estate was privately purchased (v). However, the new buyer arranged a second auction of Beckford’s collection in 1823, which was attended by George Hammond Lucy. This item cannot be accurately identified in the 1823 Fonthill Abbey sale catalogue, nor in the original 1822 catalogue. It is still possible that this lacquer box was purchased at the sale, as it is recorded that George Hammond Lucy purchased 13 or 14 lacquer pieces from the sale (vi). His wife, Mary Elizabeth Lucy (1803-90) recorded that all the lacquerware in the Billiard Room was purchased at the Fonthill Abbey sale, although it is not clear which particular items she was referring to (vii). (i) Cynthia Viallé, ‘Japanese Lacquer Cabinets in the Records of the Dutch East Indian Company’, in Anton Schweizer, Martin Hirsch and Dietrich O.A. Klose, Japanische Lackkunst für Bayerns Fürsten: Die japanischen Lackmöbel der Staatlichen Münzsammlung München (Japanese Lacquer for Bavarian Princes: The Japanese Lacquer Furniture in the State Collection of Coins and Medals, Munich), München, Staatlichen Münzsammlung, 2011, pp. 31–46) (ii) See Györgyi Fajcsák, ‘Mulan at Esterháza’: The Lacquer Cabinets in the Collection at Esterházy Palace, Fertőd, Esterháza Centre of Culture, research and Festivals, 2018, pp. 24–8. (iii) 'William Thomas Beckford', Legacies of British Slave-Ownership database, UCL, accessed 30/05/2024. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/22232 (iv) 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. (v) Caroline Dakers ‘The break-up of the Fonthill estate’ in Dakers (ed.), Fonthill Recovered: A Cultural History, (London: UCL Press, 2018), pp. 97-98 (vi) Warwickshire County Record Office, L6/1116; Clive Wainwright, The Romantic Interior: The British Collector at Home, 1750-1850, (London: Yale University Press, 1989) pp. 217-218. (vii) 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.