THE MAZARIN CHEST PROJECT

History of the Mazarin Chest

The Mazarin Chest, renowned as one of the finest pieces of Japanese export lacquer to have survived from circa 1640, is a star item in the V&A's internationally acclaimed collection of Japanese art. It measures 59 cm high, 101.5 cm wide and 63.9 cm deep. It is made of black-lacquered wood lavishly decorated with scenes from the Tale of Genji and the Tale of the Soga Brothers as well as other subject matter.

Export lacquerware, which was first produced in the late sixteenth century, was quite distinct from domestic wares. It was made in a hybrid style that combined western forms with techniques and decoration derived from both Japanese and foreign traditions, especially those of China and Korea.

During the 1630s, a new style of export lacquer evolved. This was characterised by a small group of objects of exceptionally high quality which showed similarities to lacquer for the home market. It is to this group of export lacquer that the Mazarin Chest belongs.

The Mazarin Chest was manufactured in Kyoto in the late 1630s or early 1640s. It is assumed that, like other examples of export lacquer, it was either shipped directly to Europe or to an official of the Dutch East India Company serving in the Dutch East Indies. Nothing, however, is known of its early history. The earliest information concerning its provenance derives from the coat of arms of the Mazarin-La Meilleraye family on its French steel key, suggesting that it was once in their possession.

The Mazarin-La Meilleraye family was related to the Mazarin family, descendants of Jules Mazarin (1602-61), who was born in Rome as Giulio Mazarino. Mazarin became a French statesman and Roman Catholic cardinal, and ruled France as the first minister of the regent Anne of Austria for her five-year-old son, Louis XIV (1638-1715). The first duke of the Mazarin-La Meilleraye family, Armand de la Porte (1631-1713), received the title when he married Cardinal Mazarin's eldest niece, Hortense Mancini (1649-99). It is highly unlikely, however, that he commissioned the chest. Not only is he known to have had little regard for works of art, but he actively defaced some treasured items. It is more likely that the duke acquired the chest from the Mazarin family, since Cardinal Mazarin himself is known to have been a collector of lacquer.

The Mazarin Chest subsequently entered into the possession of Jacques Leopold, Duc de Bouillon (1746-1802), who had amassed a splendid collection of art in Paris. In 1800, the chest passed into the ownership of William Beckford (1760-1844), Gothic novelist and eclectic collector. He had a particularly fine collection of Japanese lacquer, much of which came from the Duc de Bouillon. Beckford kept the Mazarin Chest at his home at Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire.

The chest appears in the catalogue of the 1823 Fonthill Abbey sale, after which it moved to Hamilton Palace in Scotland, seat of the Dukes of Hamilton. It next appears in the catalogue of the 1882 Hamilton Palace sale, from which it was purchased by the V&A.