A George II Scarlet and Gilt-Japanned Coffer-on-Stand Attributed to Giles Grendey, Circa 1735

With Mallett, London, 1983;

The Ann and Gordon Getty Collection, Christie's New York, 23 October 2022, lot 625.

This rare coffer is inspired by domed Japanese nanban chests decorated with black, gold and mother-of-pearl inlaid lacquer that began to be exported to the West in the late 16th and early 17th centuries by newly-founded European trading companies. The form itself was based on European prototypes and was later also produced by Chinese workshops for the export market. The great desirability and cost of Asian lacquer incited Western artists to develop an indigenous industry producing furniture and objects with Asian-inspired lacquer decoration, and by the late 1600s England was already an important centre for lacquer production, known as 'japanning', as evidenced by the appearance in 1688 of John Stalker and George Parker’s Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing. This hugely influential publication offered detailed technical instructions for mixing varnishes and pigments and preparing and decorating wooden surfaces to produce a lacquer that 'may come so near the true Japan, in fineness of Black, and neatness of draught, that no one but an Artist should be able to distinguish [th]em'.

A black and gold japanned chest on stand with a flat rather than domed lid is at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire (illustrated in R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, Woodbridge 1954, Vol. I fig. 40 p.21), and another chest with a flat lid and decorated with black and brown japanning, formerly in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, was sold Christie's New York, 21 October 2014, lot 8. Two black and gold japanned coffers with domed lids and bracket feet rather than a discrete stand are also illustrated in Edwards, figs. 42 and 43, p.22.