Page 125 - Bonhams Chinese & Asian Works of Art Los Angelis December 14 2020

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AN EXPORT LACQUER CABINET Published
Edo period (1615-1868), second quarter of the 17th century Edmund J. Lewis and Joe Earle, Shadows and Reflections: Japanese
The rectangular cabinet fitted with hinged doors and decorated in Lacquer Art from the Collection of Edmund J. Lewis at the Honolulu
gold and silver hiramaki-e, takamaki-e, nashiji, kirikane and aogai, the Academy of Arts, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1996, cat. no. 6
top and sides all decorated with shaped panels containing moonlit
landscapes, blossoming autumn plants, and an owl perched in a The unusually fine decoration of this cabinet, in the style associated
camellia tree, each panel set against a dense gold nashiji ground, the with lacquerwares manufactured for the Dutch market starting in about
edges finished in bands of geometric design and chrysanthemums and 1620, allows us to associate with it a famous group of pieces dating
vines, the interior of the doors decorated with blossoming flowers, the from the 1630s, several of them special commissions for leading
removable drawers black lacquer, the silver hardware decorated with officers of the Dutch East India Company. The landscape panels, in
chrysanthemum heads and stylized vines particular, match those special commissions in the quality of their
12 1/4 x 16.7/8 x 14 7/8in (31.2 x 42.8 x 37.7cm) execution and their exotic medley of Japanese with Chinese, Korean
and other foreign motifs; see Joe Earle, “Genji Meets Yang Guifei:
$8,000 - 10,000 A Group of Early Japanese Export Lacquers,” Transactions of the
Oriental Ceramic Society, 47 (1982-3), pp.45-75.

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