Towards the end of the Seventeenth Century the rich shell-inlaid coffers of the Momoyama period were gradually replaced by a more restrained and elegant style with carefully placed gold lacquer decoration on a plain black lacquer ground. The demands of the Dutch, who exported lacquer chests, coffers and panels, together with much porcelain, from their trading station at Nagasaki, meant that much of the lacquer had to be produced to a fixed price and time; as a result, their thin coats of black lacquer often became grey and oxidised after years of exposure to sunlight, and were sometimes 'refreshed' by a western Japanner using a shellac-based "lacquer".

In contrast to these thin coated lacquer cabinets, this coffer is of fine quality and would have been specially ordered. Export coffers and cabinets were not exported in large quantities. In 1664 the V.O.C. imported 101 pieces of lacquer into Holland as compared to 45,000 pieces of Japanese porcelain. These cabinets and coffers were admired throughout Europe and noted by various travellers to the great houses. On 20 April 1661, for instance, Samuel Pepys saw in the Duk of York's closet 'among other things two very fine chests covered with gold and Indian varnish, given him by the East India Company of Holland.' In 1679 John Evelyn saw in the Portuguese Ambassador's House in London 'rich (Japan) cabinets of which I think there were a dosen'.

A similar example sold in these Rooms, lot 343, 11 November 1991