The Dutch connection: Asian export art in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Magazine Antiques, March, 1998 by Christian J.A. Jorg

The small number of surviving lacquer objects made in the Netherlands at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century include chests and cabinets ascribed to the northern Netherlands on stylistic grounds, although it is often difficult to distinguish them from English pieces of the same period.(12) A popular type was the rectangular cabinet reminiscent of the Japanese comptoir. It also has two doors and several drawers, but the better examples have hinges and locks in the Japanese style (see Pls. I, X).

As might be expected, Dutch lacquer is decorated in a chinoiserie style derived from Oriental porcelain and several other important sources. Among them are Dutch travel books about China, particularly those published by Joan Nieuhof and Olfert Dapper, which describe embassies to the Chinese court by VOC officials between 1655 and 1657 and 1666 to 1668.(13) These are lavishly illustrated with copperplate engravings based partly on drawings made in China. Another important source of motifs were the illustrations in A Treatise on Japanning and Varnishing by John Stalker and George Parker, published in London in 1688. This remarkable book might be called a do-it-yourself guide for hobbyists, describing how to varnish pieces of furniture or small objects in the Japanese manner and illustrating what were thought to be typically Eastern decorative motifs. Reprinted several times, the book was sold all over western Europe well into the eighteenth century. Still other sources of inspiration were chinoiserie prints such as those made in Amsterdam by Pieter Schenck (1660-1713) and later by his son Petrus the younger.(14)

Japanese lacquerwork was not only imitated but also re-used in the Netherlands. It is known that Amalia van Solms, the wife of the stadholder Frederik Hendrik, dismantled Japanese lacquer chests, coffers, and cabinets in order to panel the walls and ceiling of a small room in her newly built palace Huis ten Bosch near The Hague. Completed about 1660, this was, as far as we know, the first lacquer room, or cabinet, in Europe, and it set a fashion that was soon emulated at other European courts. Japanese lacquer panels were also set into pieces of furniture, such as neered chests of drawers (see Pl. XI). This practice reached its heyday in the eighteenth century and was particularly favored in France. Often European lacquer panels were made especially for this purpose as a less expensive alternative to Japanese lacquer.

Indian silks and, in particular, cotton textiles were traditionally used to pay for pepper, nutmeg, and cloves grown in the Indonesian archipelago, making it imperative that the VOC establish a firm foothold in India. Once again, the Portuguese stood in the way, and only sheer fighting power, modern equipment, and good logistics made the Dutch victors in the end. Over time the Dutch established various political alliances with local Indian rulers to assure the VOC a share of the textile trade. Thus they shipped copper from Japan, gold from China, rice from Java, ivory from Siam, and many other commodities to India to be bartered for textiles. VOC factories were established in Gujarat, along the Malabar and Coromandel Coasts, and in Bengal. The quality of Bengali muslin was superb; Surat was well known for its beautifully printed chintzes; and the Coromandel Coast specialized in painted chintzes.