第36届世界艺术史大会｜“漆的全球流变”分论坛官方议程

C’est avec le vaisseau l’Amphitrite, revenu à Lorient en août 1700, qu’arrivent les premiers objets chinois laqués, dénommés vernis, directement importés par les Français. Pendant un siècle, ces objets réalisés en Chine, à l’intention des Européens, arrivent par le port de la Compagnie des Indes, Lorient, détenteur exclusif du retour des marchandises d’Asie dans le royaume. En s’appuyant sur les archives des différentes compagnies de commerce, le musée de la Compagnie des Indes a pu faire entrer un échantillonnage de laques de commande chinoises dans ses collections : paravents, bureaux, coiffeuses, boîtes de jeux, boîtes à perruque, de coutures, etc. La communication en présentera les caractéristiques.

The paper discusses a group of Coromandel screens that portray thrilling tiger hunts, a motif that experienced a resurgence since the late sixteenth century and further appeared on multiple types of screens manufactured in East Asia. The paper explores whether the hunting scenes were rooted in the same pictorial formulas that spread along the East Asian seashores – the representations of Lady Wenji’s return to China. It concludes with a tentative assumption that this formula underwent a revival through the Coromandel screen to respond to the rise of nomadic and maritime cultures which established a shared East Asian visual in the early modern period.

This paper examines a Japanese lacquer baluster owned by the Princess of Orange, Amalia van Solms (1602-1675). Scholarship often frames it as a gift given to the Princess by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), thereby undermining the role of the Princess as a cutting-edge consumer who sought out innovative objects and materials through her global network of contacts. By contrast, the balustrade is here understood as both a critical component within the Princess’s domestic interiors and an object that participated in the volatile global lacquer economy. The balustrade carried multiple simultaneous meanings depending on viewer and context, ranging from the poetic content understood by the makers to the politically charged role it played in shaping European court rituals.

This article attempts to disentangle the visual and material reframing of transcultural images and objects by focusing on a set of Chinese lacquer folding screens that represent Christian iconography in Museu do Oriente, Lisbon. It demonstrates that these Christian images are closely connected with the Catholic missionaries’ activities in China, as well as the devotional paintings, engravings that flowed into China in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. From a material point of view, it transfers the western religious images into Chinese lacquer furniture, combining both symbolic dimension and practical function. This study further addresses that these screens exemplify the fusion of European biblical motifs and Chinese flora and fauna decorations, the European technique of chiaroscuro and Chinese modeling of forms.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, there were two main categories of Asian exported lacquerware: Customized production and Export-oriented local design. The former refers to the production based on customers’samples; The latter is the simulated design or production of the former by Chinese craftsmen. The Herbert Pakington Lacquer chair collected by the V&A Museum was a relatively special existence, This case belongs to the categories of semi-finished product export， which reflects the particularity of lacquer in the process of material and cultural dissemination, and the global evolution of lacquer technology, materials, and images can also be found.

Pendant environ 25 ans, j'ai été responsable des ATELIERS BRUGIER, créés vers 1920.  Le sujet de mon exposé est  le réemploi des laques de Coromandel par les ébénistes européens du XVIIIe siècle. J'évoquerai les voyages vers l'Extrême-Orient, le commerce grâce aux grandes compagnies maritimes occidentales et aux comptoirs orientaux. Je n'oublierai pas le rôle des marchands-merciers, fournisseurs des grands collectionneurs. J'évoquerai également la vogue des "cabinets chinois", c'est-à-dire des panneaux de paravents employés pour lambrisser les murs des salons. Je terminerai cet exposé par les grands collectionneurs et amateurs de laque aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles.

The great European vogue for East Asian lacquer artefacts began with the rise of the English and Dutch East India companies in the seventeenth century. Western eyes were particularly attracted by lacquer, which was a novel material and had a fascinating appeal due to its durability and sheen. Lacquer objects and furniture became highly coveted luxury articles and were avidly collected in order to turn interiors at princely courts and noble palaces into ‘Indian cabinets’ and ‘Chinese rooms’. The so-called Japanese Cabinet at the Hermitage in Bayreuth, established around 1740, was intended as a Gesamtkunstwerk evoking Far Eastern associations. This paper will investigate the Western perception of the ‘exotic’ Asia and its visual representation in the Japanese Cabinet at the Hermitage in Bayreuth.

The Royal Palace in Turin preserves the precious art collections of the Savoy dynasty. The Royal Apartments include four Chinese rooms dated back to the eighteenth century with lacquered panels from the Far East with gold paintings and Coromandel, joined by imitations by local specialized ateliers. The lecture’s interdisciplinary approach examines the artistic-historical context of the “Chinese cabinets” with a particular overview of exchanges and international influences regarding the first “Chinese cabinet” designed by Filippo Juvarra (1732), highlighting lacquer panels in a room with boiserie and mirrors. Some aspects of the decorative technique of the East Asian panels and their emulations will be also explained.

Examining three European lacquer-paneled rooms over three centuries, this paper explains how lacquer was deployed in combination with porcelain, gold, and other materials to highlight their materiality while simultaneously emphasizing the reflectivity of their surfaces. In the 17th century, the Leeuwarden in the Netherlands used Chinese screen panels as a backdrop for Chinese porcelains. In the 18th century, Schönbrunn Palace near Vienna converted lacquer panels into decorative shapes mixed with mirrors and porcelain. And in the 19th century, the Chinese Museum in France’s Fontainebleau Palace re-mixed lacquer with ebony and cloisonné to merge Chinese and French craft traditions.

The presentation will center on female members of the Danish court who engaged in the acquisition of Asian lacquered objects. It will look closely at the training these women received from Dutch artists, enabling them to skillfully craft similar objects through the technique of imitation lacquer. My examination of the material challenges involved includes the reconstruction of some seventeenth-century European lacquer recipes, which accentuates the intimate nature of these artistic processes. The aim is to enhance our understanding and knowledge regarding the significance of female collectors and practitioners of lacquerware in Denmark throughout the seventeenth century.

Au XVIIIe siècle, après un long « dialogue » entre les laques de Chine et les laques de France, deux changements importants vont se produire dans la fabrication des laques en France. D’une part, l’imitation des laques de Chine est rendue plus facile par l’invention du vernis « Martin ». D’autre part, se développe la création de laques par les artisans français, tout en continuant à s’inspirer de sujets chinois.Lors de l'assimilation et de la ré-appropriation des objets de Chine, les Français s'affranchirent des significations des modèles chinois. En outre, la différence fondamentale de fonction aboutit à des objets laqués différents entre la Chine et la France. Mais, il est indubitable que les deux pays ont remporté un grand succès dans le domaine de fabrication du laque.

This paper focuses on the trans-material adaptation and (re-)production of Coromandel lacquer in the early eighteenth-century Low Countries of Europe. European artisans deftly mimicked Coromandel, employing diverse materials such as ceramic, leather, tapestry and stucco. Beyond consumption, these screens transformed into dynamic objects of imitation and competition among European patrons and craftsmen as living objects. Moreover, behind the movement of objects is the interaction between people. The study highlights the technology and craft involved in this trans-material transformation and explores the social dynamics shaping exchanges between individuals. By exploring the experiences of craftsmen and patrons, it provides nuanced insights into material replication. The research tries to make tangible the elusive concept of historical artistic taste in art history via this case study.

The rise of Creoles in New Spain fueled a growing demand for Asian luxuries, notably lacquer screens. A production trend thus emerged, imitating Asian style using local materials and pre-Hispanic techniques. Unlike European chinoiserie, the lacquer screen production in New Spain went beyond imitation and formed a particular type that combined Asian ornamentation, European themes, and local craftsmanship. Through examining and comparing Asian-exported and locally-produced lacquer screens in terms of material, artistic style, and iconography, this paper explores the transformation of Asian lacquer screens in New Spain and their social function as symbolizing a privileged identity.