Surfaces for Reflection: Nanban Lacquer in the Iberian World

Abstract

Abstract In response to the arrival of Iberian traders and missionaries on the Japanese archipelago in the sixteenth century, local craftsmen developed a unique type of lacquer, called today Nanban, for European export. They adapted traditional techniques to produce chests, writing desks, reliquaries and oratories for this new peripatetic clientele. This paper will explore the assimilation of East Asian lacquered objects within the Iberian world, treating the physical and ontological transformations that occurred as they travelled throughout the vast Iberian mercantile empire in the Indo-Pacific. The very portability of such lacquered objects engendered new realms of artistic experimentation. Like the layered quality of lacquer itself, these mobile works served as vehicles of material assemblage and hermeneutic accumulation, gathering new receptions and identities as they traveled through these Pacific networks and beyond.