This Namban casket, known as dogubako, in lacquered wood (urushi), features a hinged domed lid, a square-shaped lock plate (aimeita) with animal heads and an elegant latch, a fiddlehead fern-shaped (warabi-te) top handle, and two hinges at the back (chōtsugai).
The gilt copper ornamental fittings (kazarikanagu) are finely chased with flower motifs on a punched ‘fish roe’ (nanako) background pattern, called nanakoji. While the lock plate decoration includes pumpkins with their large, lobed leaves, and the latch features a minute fish-scale pattern, the hinges depict chrysanthemum flowers in full bloom.
The unusual decoration of the casket, particularly the front and domed lid, consists of vertical rectangular panels set with mother-of-pearl inlay (raden), bordered by a chequered frieze along the casket’s edges, which also separates each panel from the next. The panel’s complex arrangement features a lobed cartouche in reserve (with flowers) over a crushed mother-of-pearl ground, bordered by a frieze of the well-known endless pearl pattern, named shippōtsunagi. The sides feature the same type of carpet-like composition, with flowers over the black ground in the central field, bordered by a narrow frame of crushed raden and a frieze of lozenges. The back features a simplified version of the front and lid, with vertical floral panels divided by a chequered frieze and bordered by a frame of triangles. The interior and underside are decorated in plain black lacquer.
The refined gold decoration applied to such caskets, called maki-e (literally ‘sprinkled picture’), was common in Momoyama (1568-1600) and early Edo Japan. During this period, a special type lacquerware made for export, which combined mother-of-pearl inlay with hiramaki-e, was called nanban maki-e or nanban shitsugei.[1] Namban, or Nanban-jin (literally, ‘Southern Barbarian’), is a Japanese term derived from Chinese that refers to the Portuguese and Spanish merchants, missionaries, and sailors who arrived in Japan during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The term Namban has also become synonymous with the types of lacquerware and other products commissioned in Japan for its domestic market or for export. These objects reflected Western taste and were modelled after European prototypes. Namban-style products, which were made exclusively for export, commonly combined Japanese techniques, materials, and motifs with European styles and shapes. Namban caskets, like the present example, were apparently used for storing precious belongings, such as jewellery. Made to European specifications, the reflect the Portuguese demand for mother-of-pearl objects, akin to those produced in Gujarat, India.
The present casket is remarkable not only for its preservation state but also its unusual decoration and superior of its gilt copper fittings.
Hugo Miguel Crespo
[1] Of the vast bibliography on Namban lacquerware, see Maria Helena Mendes Pinto, Lacas Namban em Portugal. Presença portuguesa no Japão, Lisbon, Edições Inapa, 1990; Oliver Impey, “Namban Lacquer for the Portuguese Market”, Oriental Art, 46.3 (2000), pp. 42-47; Oliver Impey, Christian J. A. Jorg, Japanese Export Lacquer, 1580-1850, Amsterdam, Brill, 2005; Alexandra Curvelo, “Nanban Art: what's past is prologue”, in Victoria Weston (ed.), Portugal, Jesuits and Japan. Spiritual Beliefs and Earthly Goods (cat.), Chestnut Hill, MA, McMullen of Art, 2013, pp. 71-78; and Teresa Canepa, Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer. China and Japan and their Trade with Western Europe and the New World, 1500-1644, London, Paul Holberton publishing, 2016.