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Japanese Cabinet
Landscape with Mount Fuji and Figures, c.1680
This is one of a pair of Japanese cabinets, each decorated with a mirror image of the same black and gold lacquer decoration showing a landscape and figures. We can see general scenes from everyday life, such as a river, houses on stilts, and gnarled trees.
Travellers appear to be making their way through the scene, some crossing a river on foot, some on horseback and some carrying a small boat, all under the watchful gaze of Mount Fuji, Japan's famous volcano, in the top right hand corner. The mountain has been applied with silver leaf to represent the snow that covers its peak.
This type of cabinet was made in Japan for export to Europe by the Dutch East India Company. Items made for export normally differed from those made for use in Japan itself as the two tastes could be very different.
As well as the front, the back, sides, top and even the interior of the cabinet are highly-decorated. Inside there are 10 drawers, each with gilt-copper handles, and each adorned with landscapes showing water edged with trees and rocks.
The cabinet is made of hiba-wood, a native Japanese wood, and Urushi lacquer: a type of varnish and a luxury material demanding great skill to create the high-quality effect we see here.
Japanese Urushi is a sap drawn from a tree which occurs naturally in Asia but is only cultivated in China and Japan. The botanical name of the tree is Rhus Verniciflua or Rus Verniciflua Stokes. The Japanese call it Urushi-no-ki. When lacquer is first taken from the tree it appears as a translucent liquid which thickens and becomes opaque once it comes into contact with the air. It is then applied to the wood surface and burnished, ready to receive further coats, sometimes up to 25 coats of lacquer.
Activities, discussions and questions
» Lacquer allows you to create a relief effect on a 2-d surface.
Why do you think this might be useful when depicting a landscape?
» In Japanese art, perspective is often represented in a different
way from Western art. Rather than showing objects or landmarks as being
smaller the further away they get, Japanese artists often work upwards.
This means that the furthest object will be at the top of the artwork,
with the nearest at the bottom, with the distance not necessarily represented
by relative sizes of objects. Try creating an artwork for yourself using
this method.
Japanese Cabinet
Landscape with Mount Fuji and Figures, c.1680
Material: Wood and lacquer
Dimensions: 86 cm x 99 cm x 54 cm
Place made: Japan and France
Accession No: F19
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