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Lot Essay
In the late sixteenth century, Japanese lacquer makers had a global clientele and vied to come up with innovative designs. They produced portable desks with drawers, such as this one, for the European, and especially the Portuguese market. The style is known as nanban (literally, “southern barbarian”), meaning foreign. This type of cabinet was modeled on European vargueňos, or writing desks.
On our cabinet, nine rectangular drawers surround a central vertical panel enclosing the lock. The drawers and the back and side panels are richly decorated in gold lacquer and inlaid mother-of-peal with vegetal foliated scrolls. The top panel, using the same decoration technique, showcases mother-of-pearl inlaid fences near a terrace before a dense field.
A very close example is preserved in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, museum no. W.450-1922.
On our cabinet, nine rectangular drawers surround a central vertical panel enclosing the lock. The drawers and the back and side panels are richly decorated in gold lacquer and inlaid mother-of-peal with vegetal foliated scrolls. The top panel, using the same decoration technique, showcases mother-of-pearl inlaid fences near a terrace before a dense field.
A very close example is preserved in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, museum no. W.450-1922.