This small, cube-shaped Namban fall-front writing cabinet is madefrom a lightweight wood, likely the Japanese cypress (Chamaecyparisobtusa), locally known as hinoki, lacquered (urushi) in black, anddecorated in gold with mother-of-pearl (raden) inlays.The cabinet is decorated with large panels in gold andmother-of-pearl inlay, with a geometric border featuring largemother-of-pearl triangles (lobed at the front), offering a strikingcontrast with the black lacquered ground.On the exterior panel of the fall-front, underscoring themarital character of many such export pieces, is a pair of spotteddeer—a stag with antlers and a doe—within a landscape withflowering cherry and pine trees. Known for their reddish-brownsummer coats with white spots that often fade with the new seasons,the spotted deer, the native sika deer (Cervus nippon), areconsidered sacred messengers of the gods, and roam freely inparks and temples.Further strengthening the marital character of the cabinet,the top features a large panel depicting a pair of pheasants in flightabove flowering plants, probably the green pheasant (Phasianusversicolor). Known as kiji and endemic to Japan, the green pheasantis also understood in Japanese myth as a divine messenger; its callis treated as a meaningful sound-event that signals the arrival ofspring. As with the deer, their pairing implies conjugal harmony,fecundity and auspicious renewal. When opened, the cabinet revealsnine drawers arranged in four tiers, with a central drawer of doubleheight spanning two tiers. While the decoration on the drawers’fronts depict different types of flowers, including branches of themandarin orange, or tachibana (Citrus tachibana), the interior ofthe fall-front, unbordered, is decorated with a large panel depictingvines of the East Asian arrowroot (Pueraria lobata), known as kuzu.One of the sides of the cabinet depicts flowering branchesof the Japanese cherry tree (Prunus serrulata), known in Japanese as sakura, while the other features branches of tree peonies (Paeoniax suffructicosa), in full bloom, known in Japan as botan. The backpanel, more simply framed by a narrow gilt frieze of the so-calledNamban vine (karacusa), features Chinese bellflowers (Platycodongrandiflorus), known as kikyo in Japanese.The gilt-copper ornamental fittings (kazarikanagu), finelychased with flower motifs, comprise corner and edge brackets, twolock plates, one top handle, hinges, and the chrysanthemum-shapeddrawer pulls.The refined gold decoration applied to such objects, calledmaki-e, literally ‘sprinkled picture’, was common in Momoyama(1568–1600) and early Edo Japan. During this period, a speciallacquerware made for export, which combined mother-of-pearlinlay with hiramaki-e, was called Namban makie or Namban shitsugei.1 Namban, or namban-jin (literally, ‘Southern Barbarian’) is aJapanese term derived from Chinese that refers to the Portugueseand Spanish merchants, missionaries, and sailors who arrived inJapan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Namban hasalso become synonymous with the types of lacquerware and otherproducts that were commissioned in Japan for the home marketor for export and reflected Western taste and were modelled afterEuropean prototypes.Namban-style products, which were made strictly for export,commonly combine Japanese techniques, materials, and motifswith European styles and shapes. Small Namban cabinets suchas the present example were used for storing precious belongingssuch as jewellery and made to European specifications, respondingto Portuguese demand for mother-of-pearl objects such as thosemade in Gujarat in northern India.A fall-front writing cabinet of this type and date, a rare exampleof this shape (25.2 × 23.4 × 24.8 cm), belongs to the MuseuNacional Soares dos Reis, Oporto (inv. 40 Mob CMP/MNSR).2
HMC
1 Of the vast bibliography on Namban lacquerware, see Pinto, Maria Helena Mendes, Lacas Namban em Portugal. Presença portuguesa no Japão, Lisbon, Edições Inapa, 1990; Impey, Oliver,‘Namban Lacquer for the Portuguese Market’, Oriental Art 46.3 (2000), pp. 42–47; Impey, Oliver, Jörg, Christiaan, Japanese Export Lacquer, 1580–1850, Amsterdam, Hotei Publishing,2005; Curvelo, Alexandra, ‘Namban Art: what’s past is prologue’, in Weston, Victoria (ed.), Portugal, Jesuits and Japan. Spiritual Beliefs and Earthly Goods (cat.), Chestnut Hill, MA,McMullen of Art, 2013, pp. 71–78; and Canepa, Teresa, Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer. China and Japan and their Trade with Western Europe and the New World, 1500–1644, London, PaulHolberton publishing, 2016.
2 Pinto, Maria Helena Mendes, Lacas Namban em Portugal. Presença portuguesa no Japão, Lisbon, Edições Inapa, 1990, pp. 84–87.