Getty Museum

Cabinet

Joseph Baumhauer

Date

about 1765

Medium

Oak veneered with ebony, tulipwood, maple, Japanese cedar, and amaranth; set with panels of seventeenth-century Japanese lacquer; gilt-bronze mounts; jasper top

Culture

French

Department

Decorative Arts

Institution

Getty Museum

The combination of rare and expensive materials used on this cabinet indicates that it was a particularly expensive commission. The four Japanese lacquer panels date from the mid- to late 1600s and were created with a technique known as *kijimaki-e*. For this type of lacquer, artisans sanded plain wood to heighten its strong grain and used it as the background of each panel. They then added the scenic elements of landscape, plants, and animals in raised lacquer. Although this technique was common in Japan, such large panels were rarely incorporated into 1700’s French furniture. Copper fills the ridges in the piece’s corner columns, giving an added rich color and contrast to the gilt-bronze mounts. Yellow jasper, a semiprecious stone, rather than the usual marble, forms the top.

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