THE CABINET LATE 17TH CENTURY, THE STAND CIRCA 1720

Precious and costly Oriental lacquer, prized for its delicate decoration and polished surface, was among the luxurious and fashionable works of art imported to Europe by the Portuguese and Dutch East India Companies from the late 16th/early 17th century onwards. Lacquerware appears in the collections of some European monarchs prior to this date, traded by individual missions, such as ‘divers objets façons Inde’, listed in 1560 in the inventory of the collection of François I (A. Forray-Carlier, ‘Les Secrets de la Lacque Française’, Paris, 2014, p. 12).
Works of art from Japan, including lacquer coffers, cabinets and other smaller items, were from 1637 exclusively exported by the VOC (Dutch East India Company) to Amsterdam, from where they would be transferred to Paris, London and other European centres. A superb example of these early shipments is Cardinal de Mazarin’s celebrated lacquer coffer, purchased in 1658, recently acquired by the Rijksmuseum (AK-RAK-2013-3-1). Japanese lacquer cabinets such as the present model, with two doors and pictorial decoration with a black ground, were executed, often in Kyoto, from the mid-17th Century. Mazarin’s 1661 inventory lists sixty Japanese lacquer coffers or cabinets, largely decorated with landscapes and figures; this type of decoration appears to have remained en vogue throughout the remainder of the 17th Century (T. Wolvesperges, ‘Le Meuble en Laque aux XVIIIe Siècle’, Paris, 2000, p. 36). Intricate carved giltwood stands, designed to harmonise with the decoration of palace interiors, were conceived for these cabinets in the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV and during the Régence. Some of these rare ensembles, including the present cabinet-on-stand, have remained intact such as the Louis XIV example from the collection of Antoine-Rene Voyer d’Argenson, marquis de Palmy (d. 1787), now at the Bibliothèque National, Paris (Louis XIV, Fastes et Decors, exh. cat. Paris, Musee des Arts Decoratifs, 1960, p. 14, no. 62).