Portable altar with painting of the Virgin and Child
Altar: wood covered in black lacquer with gold hiramakie and mother-of-pearl inlay; Painting: oil on panel
Japan, late 16th - early 17th century
Christian missionaries in Japan commissioned local craftsmen to make votive and liturgical objects for the churches they were establishing in Asia and for export to the West. This private altar is executed in lacquer, a traditional Japanese technique, although in a taste meant to appeal to Europeans. The portrait of the Virgin and Child is the work of a Japanese artist trained at the Seminary of Painters established by the Jesuits in Nagasaki in 1583.
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Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachussetts
