Page 348 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

Fig. 4.1.1.1.25 Namban crucifix
Momoyama period (1573–1615)
Height: 73cm; width: 52cm
Museo San Esteban PP Dominicos, Salamanca
(inv. no. SA.E.50)

Fig. 4.1.1.1.27 Namban cabinet, converted into
a Holy Host receptacle
Momoyama/early Edo period, c.1580–1630 Fig. 4.1.1.1.26 Namban host receptacle
Original cabinet: height: 33.3cm; width: 44.4cm; Momoyama period (1573–1615)
depth: 30.2cm Height: 35.5cm; width: 25.5cm; depth: 24cm
Convent of San Juan de la Penitencia, Santiago Apóstol Parish Church,
Alcalá de Henares, Madrid Gáldar, Gran Canaria

noted that the fine lacquer layers of the original back panel and drawers were split and constructed from the aforesaid standing paintings [and made] a small room, which
then pasted onto the new wooden additions, and that this extensive and meticulous takes up little space when it is in use. They can be carried conveniently, they make a
alteration work, as well as the addition of three silver lock-plates enriched with red, very charming show of painting, and they can quickly form a room in whatever shape
blue and green semiprecious stones, may have been made in New Spain, sometime is desired’. The object described as ‘paintings from Japan that is folded’ is in all
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after the mid-seventeenth century. There is no documentary evidence concerning the probability a folding screen, perhaps one of the two pairs brought by the first Japanese
arrival of this liturgical lacquer to the convent. embassy to Philip II in 1582. Although such folding screens, which appear to have
Friars of these Mendicant Orders also participated in establishing diplomatic been imported in considerable quantities to New Spain, are beyond the scope of
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relations between the rulers of Japan and Europe, as well as those representing this study, they are important in demonstrating the continuous use of Japanese lacquer
the Spanish Crown in New Spain. In 1613, the Spanish Franciscan Luis Sotelo objects, even if only in small quantities, by the royal court of Madrid.
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(1574–1624) was appointed ambassador for another Japanese delegation, known as To sum up, the Jesuits played a very important role in the cultural and artistic
the Keichô Embassy, which was sent via New Spain to the royal court in Madrid and exhanges that occurred between Japan, Western Europe and the New World in the
the Vatican. Hasekura Tsunenaga (1571–1621), a samurai from the fief of Sendai, was late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The Jesuits, as textual sources have
sent to Europe by his feudal warlord, Date Masamune (1567–1636), who organized shown, were well aware of the high quality and artistic value of lacquer objects made
the diplomatic mission. In January 1615, Philip II received the Japanese delegation in the Momoyama period for the domestic market, and this led them to send pieces
in Madrid. In November of that same year, they were granted an audience with Pope of Japanese lacquer as gifts and thus spread a taste for it among the royalty, clergy and
Paul V in Rome. The main goals of the mission were to request Franciscan missionaries nobility of Renaissance Europe in the late sixteenth century. Isolated from Europe,
125 Cassiano del Pozzo, untitled journal of Cardinal
to be sent to a region of Japan controlled by the Date clan and to finalize a treaty Frncesco Barberini’s legation to Spain in 1626, Macao, Malacca and Goa, and with the rapid spread of Christianity, the Jesuits of
that would have established direct Japanese trade relations with New Spain. Textual Biblioteca Apostólica Vaticana, Ms. Barb. Lat. 5689, the Japan mission required a regular supply of religious objects for their devotional
124
unpaginated. Transcribed by S.N. Orso, Philip IV and
sources attest to the presence of Japanese lacquered objects in the King’s residence in the Decoration of the Alcázar of Madrid, Princeton, practices and evangelical work. This necessity, and the opportunity they had to observe
1986, p. 188. Cited in Krahe, 2014, Vol. I, p. 122.
Madrid, the Alcázar, in the early decades of the seventeenth century. In a description 122 Recently published as a Host receptacle in Impey 126 For a discussion on the folding screens imported the fine lacquer manufacturing techniques as well as the sumptuous lacquer paintings
and Jörg, 2005, p. 185, no. 441; and Canepa, 2011/2, into New Spain as early as 1607 and their influence
of the New Room or Mirror Room made by the Italian antiquarian Cassiano del Pozzo pp. 279–281, fig. 13. in the local production of folding screens, see made by reknown artists of the Kāno family for the interiors of the newly built castles
1588–1657) during his visit in 1626, at the time Philip IV was reigning, he states that 123 For this opinion and further bibliographical Sofia Sanabrais, ‘The Biombo or Folding Screen of some of powerful feudal warlords, prompted the Jesuits to order liturgical lacquers
references, see Kawamura, 2013, pp. 382–387, in Colonial Mexico’, in Pierce and Otsuka, 2009,
‘In the same room, before entering, there was one of those paintings from Japan that no. 20. Namban cabinets of this shape will be pp. 69–106. to their specific requirements from local lacquer craftsmen working in, and around
discussed in the following section of this Chapter. 127 For a discussion on the Japanese folding screens
is folded one [panel] against the other in the manner of their books, which, standing 124 For more information on this mission, see Javier taken by the first Japanese Embassy and their Miyako, which were intended for use in personal devotion and Jesuit churches in
on their feet, serve to divide rooms and to screen doors. They are called ‘biombos’. Villalba Fernández, ‘Japón, Date Masamune y la influence in the decorative arts of New Spain, see Japan, and most probably also in their missions in Asia, Europe and the New World.
embajada Keichô’, in Kawamura, 2013, pp. 47–92 Cabañas Moreno, 2013, pp. 297–319 (pp. 85–106,
They are made with long panels, one attached to the other, and unfold together. It was (pp. 9–12, English version). English version). The lacquer craftsmen ingeniously adapted their traditional lacquer manufacturing

346 Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer Trade in Japanese Lacquer 347