Japanese lacquer chest

Japanese lacquer chest decorated on three sides with gold painted decorations on a black background. The main decoration presents several islands of pagodas surrounded by trees and rocks.
The gildwood base comes from Britain and belongs to the Queen Ann period. The belt is decorated in its center with a scrolled palmette and framed with scrolls ending in acanthus leaves. Feet are shaped claws enclosing a globe.
Keyhole and handles in brass finely engraved with plant motifs.
17th century period
Restorations of use
H. 105 x W. 136 x D. 68 cm
 
This kind of lakescape, in fact evocative of Asia in the European collective imagination, is the Asian craftsmen's response to the European demand, which really took off at the end of the 17th century. Lacquers found in the inventory made at Mazarin's death (in 1661) are still rare objects whose presence shows more Mazarin eclectic taste rather than being the testimony of any Chinese fashion. The Siamese embassy, that Louis XIV received in 1686, launched a new interest in oriental art in France.
 
But the Dutch and the English were interested much earlier, and it is by English sea that this piece of furniture has come to us. We can also see that the piece of furniture meets an exclusively European demand thanks to its shape, since chests did not exist in Asia, which only began to produce them at the beginning of the 17th century, when the European trading posts began to order them.
 
The chest was then mounted on a Queen Ann (c. 1720-1750) period stand. We find the very characteristic foot of this period, in cabriole, ending with a "claw and ball", a dragon's claw encircling a globe, and decorated on the corners with acanthus leaves.