Japan, Edo period, Pictorialist style Pagoda jewelry box, circa 1640-1650 in gold and silver maki-e lacquer on a black background, with relief decoration of hunting scenes in winter, go players and a painting artist, a cockfight and flying birds. Rectangular in shape, it is flanked by pillars at all four corners. The front lock opens the concave lid, whose top slides to reveal a compartment. A aventurine nashiji background inside. One side of the mobile box reveals a secret drawer. The interior, decorated with children with lanterns, was formerly darkened with a mirror. It stands on four ball feet. Rich ornamentation in chased and gilded metal. Probably European lock. Height 33.5 Long. 37.5 Width 28.5 cm. (key missing) Provenance: Monegasque collection. Japan, Edo Period, ca. 1640-1660. A pagode-shaped lacquered jewellery box. Gilded metal mounts. Related works : - Coffret aux piliers d'ivoire, 1640-60, Tokyo National Museum, Japan ; - Coffre aux pagodes dans un paysage, The Burgley House Collection (JWA09038), Stamford, UK; - Jewelry box, Wilanowski Palace, King John III Museum, Warsaw, Poland. Bibliography: - Stéphane Castelluccio, Le goût pour les laques d'Orient en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Paris, Editions Monelle Hayot, 2019, fig 64 pp. 124-126 for a comparable model that belonged to the Duchess of Mazarin; - Olivier Impey, Christiaan Jörg, Japanese Export Lacquer 1580-1850, Amsterdam, Hotei Publishing, 2005, no. 388a, the 11 comparable examples reproduced on pp. 168-171; - Meiko Nagashima, "Export Lacquer: Reflection of the West in Black and Gold Makie = Japan Makie , Kyoto National Museum, Kyoto, 2008, a comparable model reproduced as no. 180, p. 185 and p. 328. A PRECIOUS JEWEL BOX, by Aymeric Rouillac with Hortense Lugand The taste for these small, high-quality lacquer boxes was essentially feminine under the Ancien Régime. Queen Marie-Antoinette's collection of Japanese lacquer boxes can be found at the Château de Versailles, though none is as luxurious as this example. Made in Japan in the 1640s and 1650s, in the new Pictorialist style developed for the Dutch East India Company, this pagoda-shaped box was probably embellished in 18th-century Europe with crystal, silver or gold accessories to make a writing, toilet or jewelry case. The merchant Gersaint advertised it as follows in 1747: "boëte de forme presque quarré est d'un fond d'ancienne aventurine orné de branchages de relief surdorés. It is suitable for making a magnificent cellar or kit". Madame de Pompadour herself had chosen a "lockable lacquer chest with three drawers to hold her diamonds", purchased 400 livres from Lazarre Duvaux in 1754. The Marquise owned at least three other black and gold lacquer boxes similar to this one to store her gold coins, or transformed into an inkwell, like the one in the sale of the Duchesse de Mazarin in 1781 (Castellucio, 2019, p.123). With their luxurious relief decoration and precious corner pillars, these boxes are the richest examples to have come down to us. They can be found in the finest collections in Europe and Japan. Cardinal Mazarin kept a single pair of these small chests "de verny de la Chine aussy en forme de tombeau l'un dont les collonnes aux encoigneures sont unies dorées et celles de l'autre a balustres doré et noir" (n°837). While Impey and Jorg have identified 11 pagoda caskets from around the world, derived from the exceptional "Chiddingston casket" in the Amolean Museum, Oxford, this is the only one whose landscapes are embellished with figures. As on the four great "Mazarin chests" in London, Amsterdam, Berlin and Moscow, truculent scenes of Japanese life adorn the panels of this box: Go players sit in a garden on one side while an artist paints on the other, bow hunters shoot a bat-l'eau at deer on the front, birds fly over the back and sides of the lid while mischievous children point at the owner's reflection in the inner mirror. The gold powder on a black background used to decorate this lacquer is used here with slight reliefs, demonstrating the high level of mastery of the original workshop. The sap from the urushi tree must be applied in countless successive coats, allowing it to dry and sanding it with each pass, to achieve such a thickness of decoration, unlike most other lacquers arriving from Japan at the same time, which remain flat.