Marchands, Merciers, and Magots: The Japanese Lacquer Collection of Madame de Pompadour” Lecture by Monika Bincsik, Ritsumeikan University

Lecture Information:
The eighteenth-century lacquer market in Paris was governed by the need for large-size Chinese panels, but also the smaller, delicately executed Japanese lacquer objects were highly valued. The utmost luxury was the combination of the rare Japanese “antique” lacquer and their setting into gilded bronze mounts. Many of the chinoiserie cabinets in France were executed for women which suggest an image associated with China and Japan at that time: secluded, but elegant, luxurious feminity. Similar notions were applied to collecting Japanese lacquer: a pastime or a kind of parlour game, the field of the ‘amateurs’. The prices at the art market around the mid-eighteenth century were set or at least greatly influenced by the royal family, Madame de Pompadour and the financiers (fermiers généraux), like Randon de Boisset, friend of the painter François Boucher and owner of a significant lacquer collection. The financiers were buying art as investment – knowing the vulnerability of the property values. As a result of the weakness of the contemporary economy structure, money that couldn’t be invested safely found its way to the sale rooms and art dealers.

Madame de Pompadour purchased most of her Japanese lacquers from Lazare Duvaux. The Marquise from 1746 to 1762 bought, built and leased a total of fifteen properties, the decoration of these required numerous art objects. Her personal tastes were reflected in the interior concepts, she preferred the small-sized, intimate rooms when status and political representation required the monumental. Between May 1750 and June 1758 she acquired about sixty Japanese lacquer objects from Duvaux, including panels re-used to decorate furniture as well as lacquer boxes of different sizes and small maki-e (sprinkled picture) decorated boxes mounted as snuffboxes. Some of the highest quality Japanese maki-e objects to ever reach Europe were in the collection of the Marquise.

Lecturer Information:
Dr. Monika Bincsik, a specialist in Japanese lacquer and the history of its reception in Europe and the United States, has served as the Curator of Japanese Art at the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts, Budapest, and is currently a Research Assistant at the Art Research Center of the Ritsumeikan University.