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Updated: May 27, 2025
The jolly little old leather-colored man who kept the bazaar winked at Sara as he brought out the buttons for Avrillia's inspection. They looked very much like ordinary buttons, except that they were, of course, more intelligent-looking, and they were on a pink card instead of a white one; also, they were in a shiny lacquer box, the lid of which was watched over by gold dragons.
It took them a long time to choose their house-furnishings: there was a piece of black-and-gold lacquer; a set of painted panels; a Persian rug, swept by the tails of two haughty peacocks; some cloud-gray Chinese porcelains; a set of Du Barry vases; a crystal-and-enamel box, designed probably for some sacred purpose, but contributed by Pete as an excellent receptacle for chocolates at her bedside.
There were spreading cedar trees, black like the tents of Bedouins, and there were straight cryptomerias for the masts of fairy ships. There was a strange tree, whose light-green foliage grew in round clumps like trays of green lacquer at the extremities of twisted brandies, a natural étagère.
In deference to the fact that all but our Japanese friend were unaccustomed to chopsticks, forks were placed on the table as well as the little sticks that the Orientals use so deftly. At each place was a beautiful lacquer tray, about twelve by eighteen inches, a pair of chopsticks, a fork and a teaspoon. Before the meal was over several of us became quite expert in using the chopsticks.
French artists took up the Oriental style, and produced some very successful lacquer work, striking out in an entirely distinct style, which, as Vernis Martin decoration, became famous. The varnish or lacquer forming the foundation for those delightful little pictures was not unlike in effect the Oriental lacquer which to some extent it was intended to imitate.
Contemporary with Boule's work, were the richly-mounted tables, having slabs of Egyptian porphyry, or Florentine marble mosaic; and marqueterie cabinets, with beautiful mountings of ormolu, or gilt bronze. Commodes and screens were ornamented with Chinese lacquer, which had been imported by the Dutch and taken to Paris, after the French invasion of the Netherlands. Painted by Watteau.
English and French were experimenting, the French with the greatest success in their Vernis Martin, mentioned elsewhere, which really stood quite in a class by itself, but the imitations of Chinese and Japanese lacquer were inferior to the originals. Pine, oak, lime, and many other woods, were used as a base, and the fashion was so decided that nearly all kinds of furniture were covered with it.
Then away they run to fetch the tea. Japanese servants always run when they wish to show respect; to walk would look careless and disrespectful in their eyes. The tea arrives in a small pot on a lacquer tray, with five tiny teacups without handles round the pot. There is no milk or sugar, and the tea is usually a straw-coloured, bitter liquid, very unpleasant to a European taste.
One of his pupils imitated in his work various materials pottery and wood-carving, and bronzes. The last famous artist in lacquer, Watanobe Tosu, died about thirty years ago. Whether he is destined to have a successor or successors remains to be seen. These lacquer artists, as I have indicated, worked not for lucre, but for love.
"I would give my little finger to go to Japan; it's one of the countries I want most to see. Can't you believe that, with my taste for old lacquer?" "I haven't a taste for old lacquer to excuse me," said Isabel. "You've a better excuse the means of going. You're quite wrong in your theory that I laugh at you. I don't know what has put it into your head."
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