Page 399 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

Conclusions [4.3] Japan at the time to be sent as gifts to the Iberian Peninsula and/or New Spain. These

included pieces bearing the monogram of the Order of Saint Dominic decorated in
Namban style. Textual sources indicate that friars of these Mendicant Orders helped
in further establishing diplomatic relations between Japan, Western Europe and New
Spain. A few extant liturgical lacquers decorated in the later, so-called Transition style,
including those bearing the ‘IHS’ monogram, demonstrate that despite the severity of
the Christian persecution, the Jesuits and friars of the Mendicant Orders continued
ordering liturgical lacquers in the early Edo period up until about 1639, when they
were expelled and the country was closed to all Europeans (sakoku).
The Portuguese merchants ordered a variety of lacquer portable furniture and
utilitarian objects in considerable quantities after models they brought with them
from both Europe and their settlements in India, which would have been useful
for private use in a European context or in their settlements in Asia. These objects,
probably first made in the early Momoyama period, were decorated in the Namban
style newly developed by the lacquer craftsmen to suit the Jesuit liturgical orders.
Later, in the early seventeenth century, the decoration also included the traditional
Japanese ‘sprinkling denticle’ lacquer technique imitating ray skin, or an all-over
design of small scales of mother-of-pearl, which was undoubtedly copied from objects
brought by the Portuguese from Gujarat in western India, in addition to makie. The
exotic naturalistic scenes of Japanese flowering plants, birds and/or animals as well
as Japanese traditional motifs, such as the family crests or insignia (mons), appear to
have been much appreciated by the Portuguese, as the furniture and smaller objects
made for them rarely included European motifs. Japanese lacquer furniture may have
From the scattered information provided by the primary and secondary sources, reached the royal court of Lisbon as early as the mid-1560s. By the late sixteenth
and the extant lacquer pieces, discussed in this Chapter is possible to make several century lacquer furniture would have been available for purchase in Lisbon. Members
conclusions. Firstly, it is shown that the Jesuit missionaries helped to spread a taste for of the high-ranking nobility acquired pieces in Lisbon and then took them to Spain.
Japanese lacquer among the royalty, clergy and nobility of Renaissance Europe. They Some furniture pieces, such as coffers, chests and cabinets, were adapted for religious
appear to have been the first Europeans to order lacquer objects from local craftsmen use, and served as reliquaries in monasteries and convents of both Portugal and Spain.
working in and around Miyako for use in personal devotion and Jesuit churches in The similarities of the lacquer imported by the Iberians is not surprising, as
Japan, and most probably also in their missions in Asia, Europe and the New World. Japanese and Portuguese ships went to Manila with cargoes of lacquer and other
This led to the development of a new style of urushi lacquer, known as Namban. From trade goods for sale. By the early 1610s, Spanish merchants traded in lacquer objects
about 1580, the lacquer craftsmen made a wide variety of hybrid objects combining in considerable quantities, which may have been tableware rather than furniture.
a European or Indo-Portuguese shape, and the ‘IHS’ monogram of the Society of Accounts, reports and letters written by Jesuits and European merchants who were
Jesus or other motifs embedded with Christian symbolism, with dense naturalistic present in Japan, or in other settlements in Asia, prove that lacquer objects reached
compositions of Japanese flowering plants, birds and/or animals most probably based the Iberian Peninsula via both the Portuguese trans-Atlantic, and Spanish trans-Pacific
on paintings made by the renowned Kanō school, but with a horror vacui and lavish and trans-Atlantic trade routes. Pieces such as escritoires and/or writing desks were
use of mother-of-pearl inlay that was totally alien to Japanese aesthetics. In addition, sent to Spain as gifts from male and female members of the elites and clergy living
they made objects combining a traditional Japanese shape and lacquer techniques with in the Philippines and New Spain in the early decades of the seventeenth century. In
the ‘IHS’ monogram, most probably intended for the Jesuits personal use or as gifts to the late 1620s, during the early Edo period, the Spanish were importing into Spain
powerful daimyō who had converted to Christianity. Liturgical lacquers with Christian lacquer furniture, folding screens, and most probably also tableware, which would
iconography that would not have been immediately recognizable by the Tokugawa have been available not only to the royalty but also to the high-ranking nobility. By
shogunate, or no Christian iconography at all, most probably began to be made to 1637, the trade in lacquer carried out by both the Portuguese and Spanish was in
order after the anti-Christian edict of 1597. Liturgical lacquers made with the ‘IHS’ danger of ceasing. Two years later, in 1639, their trading activities ceased abruptly
monogram in the early Edo period were also decorated in the so-called Transition style, when they were expelled, alongside the Christian missionaries, and Japan was closed to
which imitated the Kodaiji makie style introduced by the workshops of the Kōami all Europeans with the exception of the Dutch, who were allowed to stay because they
family for the domestic market. Initially, liturgical lacquers were exclusively made for did not proselytize the Christian faith.
the Jesuits, but by the beginning of the seventeenth century small numbers were also VOC written sources provide a fairly good idea of the trade in lacquer, shipments
made for friars of the Mendicant Orders, or even for private individuals, present in to the Dutch Republic and purchase price of lacquer in Japan. Initially, it was believed

398 Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer Trade in Japanese Lacquer 399