The four brothers Martin, William, Simon-Étienne, Julien, and Robert, coach-painters, sons of a tailor of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, in applying themselves to the task of imitating the processes of Oriental lacquer, by a fortunate accident developed a method admirably suited to the decoration of fans, which, in spite of many attempts to imitate, has never since been rivalled.
| Fête Champêtre, ‘Vernis Martin’ c.1730. | Wyatt Colln., V. & A. Museum. |
Two concessions were obtained—those of November 27, 1730, and February 18, 1744, permitting the elder Martin, for the space of twenty years, to execute all sorts of works in relief after the manner of the Chinese and Japanese.
An advertisement in Le Mercure, which appeared during the year 1724, recommends to the curious the fine productions in Chinese and Japanese varnish, of this ‘excellent and unique craftsman who imitates and often surpasses his models.’[108] In 1732 a fresh announcement is made in the same journal to the effect that ‘Le Sieur Martin the elder, who may be said to have considerably enriched the beaux-arts in Europe by imitating and even surpassing in many respects the beautiful varnishes and reliefs of China and Japan, gives notice to the public that he undertakes panels, friezes, ceilings, carriages, etc., in splendid varnishings.’
This varnish, with its brilliant translucency, and its remarkable immunity from cracking, was applied over painting done in the ordinary oil method, the painting being necessarily thin, almost to transparency, the material of the fan usually ivory. The decoration consists of either a single subject covering the whole field of the fan, or a system of one, three, or many cartouches, occasionally as many as twenty miniatures, enclosed in an ornamental setting, made up of a curious mixture of Chinese diapered patterns, semi-naturalistic semi-Persian ornament, Italian arabesques, and French ornament of the character with which we are familiar in Rouen ware.
The guards are in most instances decorated with miniatures, usually two superior and two inferior, divided by ornamental borders or
arabesques. On the handle end of the fan, i.e. the smaller semicircle, are either one, three, or more miniatures, often imitation Chinese subjects: these, in some instances, are in self-colour, as pink, red, or blue. The gilding is both in leaf and painted, usually worked over with a pattern in red or brown.
The figure-painting is in no instance by a master-hand, i.e. by an artist of the first calibre, but by skilled workmen, or artificers, deriving their inspiration from outside sources.