Coromandel lacquer

Coromandel lacquer is a type of Chinese lacquerware, latterly mainly made for export, so called only in the West because it was shipped to European markets via the Coromandel coast of south-east India, where the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) and its rivals from a number of European powers had bases in the 18th century.

[1] The most common type of object made in the style, both for Chinese domestic use and exports was the Coromandel screen, a large folding screen with as many as twelve leaves, coated in black lacquer with large pictures using the kuan cai (literally "incised colors") technique, sometimes combined with mother of pearl inlays.

[4] By the 18th century, Chinese wallpaper began to reach Europe, and generally replaced lacquer panels as a cover for walls.

[7] A combination of lacquer techniques are often used in Coromandel screens, but the basic one is kuan cai or "incised colors",[8] which goes back to the Song dynasty.

[9] A different technique was to use inlays of mother of pearl, which had been used on lacquer since at least the Song dynasty and revived in popularity in the 16th century, perhaps also using tortoiseshell, ivory, and metal, especially gold for touches.

[18] This fashion seems to have died away rapidly after 1700, probably largely replaced in England with tapestries using similar Asiatic iconography for royalty and the top of the market (examples remain at Belton House), and then later wallpaper.

The Europeans were vague on the differences between Chinese, Japanese, Indian and other East Asian styles, and English tapestry-makers replicated the feel of Coromandel lacquer subjects with the individual figures adapted from Mughal miniatures they had to hand.

was a leading Parisian ébéniste in the mid-18th century, among those who often incorporated both Chinese and Japanese lacquer into his pieces, the latter usually in the black and gold maki-e style.

[27] In Vita Sackville-West's novel The Edwardians, published in 1930 but set in 1905–10, a "coromandel screen" is mentioned as being in a room that is "impersonal, conventional, correct", typifying the style of those who "unquestioningly followed the expensive fashion".