A RARE JAPANESE LACQUER AND SHAGREEN NAMBAN CHEST MOMOYAMA PERIOD

A RARE JAPANESE LACQUER AND SHAGREEN NAMBAN CHEST

MOMOYAMA PERIOD, EARLY 17TH CENTURY

Of typical rectangular shape with a flat lid, the top and sides decorated with lobbed panels enclosing flowering branches and a mountainous river landscape with thatched buildings and sailing boats, the details rendered in mother-of-pearl, raden, and hiramaki-e on a black roiro ground, with shagreen panels and with copper escutcheons, 27cm x 49.5cm x 34cm.

See Chirk Castle, Wrexham, for a namban coffer with comparable decoration of foliage panels on a shagreen ground. Also O Impey & C Jörg, Japanese Export Lacquer 1580-1850, p.143 nos.296-297 for other examples of early 17th c. namban chests with a similar single drawer, and J Welsh, After the Barbarians II, Namban Works of Art for the Japanese, Portuguese and Dutch Markets, pp.242-245 no. 27, where another chest is illustrated and discussed. The author explains that this shape was copied from Indo-Portuguese writing chests and boxes and the smaller ones were made to be portable.