Beside Our Shelves: Japanese Furniture in the Royal Collection

Rachel Peat (Assistant Curator of Non-European Works of Art, Royal Collection Trust and editor of Japan: Courts and Culture (2020)

Japan [Asia], Chest, 1600 to 1630.  Wood, partly ebonised, black, gold and red lacquer, mother-of-pearl, gilt bronze.  25.5 x 49.5 x 33.8 cm (whole object) [RCIN 39244].
Credit: Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth II 2020

From Hampton Court Palace to Windsor Castle, royal residences have long been home to Japanese furniture.  Since the early seventeenth century, mother-of-pearl chests, lacquer cabinets and folding screen paintings have been displayed prominently alongside European and other East Asian wares.  These pieces were not merely admired by members of the British royal family for their 'exotic' materials and motifs, but also creatively adapted and imitated by European craftsmen.  Many arrived via Dutch or English East India Company ships; from the nineteenth century, others were presented as official gifts by shoguns and emperors.  Together, their history as royal furnishings reveals as much about the British imagination of Japan as about Japan itself.  Join Rachel Peat, Assistant Curator of Non-European Works of Art at Royal Collection Trust, as she explores this four hundred-year story of export trade, royal collecting and diplomatic gifts.

Furniture in this lecture features in Royal Collection Trust's new book Japan: Courts and Culture, published in May 2020.  Full information can be found here.

Japan [Asia], Cabinet with shelves (shodana), 1850 to 1897. Wood, black and gold lacquer, silver fittings inlaid with gold, 70.6 x 75.5 x 31.0 cm (whole object) [RCIN 26044].
Credit: Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2020.