GROUND, and the specimens of
this which first reached Europe during the time of Louis XV., were
presentation pieces from the Japanese Princes to some of the Dutch
officials.

Gold ground lacquer is rarely found in furniture, and only as a rule in
some of those charming little boxes, in which the luminous effect of the
lac is heightened by the introduction of silver foliage on a minute scale,
or of tiny landscape work and figures charmingly treated, partly with dull
gold and partly highly burnished. Small placques of this beautiful ware
were used for some of the choicest pieces of Gouthiere's elegant furniture
made for Marie Antoinette.

Aventurine lacquer closely imitates in color the sparkling mineral from
which it takes its name, and a less highly finished preparation is used as
a lining for the small drawers of cabinets. Another lacquer has a black
ground, on which landscapes delicately traced in gold stand out in
charming relief. Such pieces were used by Riesener and mounted by
Gouthiere in some of the most costly furniture made for Marie Antoinette;
some specimens are in the Louvre. It is this kind of lacquer, in varying
qualities, that is usually found in cabinets, folding screens, coffers,
tables, etageres, and other ornamental articles of furniture. Enriched
with inlay of mother of pearl, the effect of which is in some cases
heightened and rendered more effective by some transparent coloring on its
reverse side, as in the case of a bird's plumage or of those beautiful
blossoms which both Chinese and Japanese artists can represent so
faithfully.

A very remarkable screen in Chinese lacquer of later date is in the South
Kensington Museum; it is composed of twelve folds each ten feet high, and
measuring when fully extended twenty-one feet. This screen is very
beautifully decorated on both sides with incised and raised ornaments
painted and gilt on black ground, with a rich border ornamented with
representations of sacred symbols and various other objects. The price
paid for it was L1,000. There are also in the Museum some very rich chairs
of modern Chinese work, in brown wood, probably teak, very elaborately
inlaid with mother-of-pearl; they were exhibited in Paris in 1867.

Of the very early history of Japanese industrial arts we know but little.
We have no record of the kind of furniture which Marco Polo found when he
travelled in Japan in the thirteenth century, and until the Jesuit
missionaries obtained a