He professes, in the "Cutts or Patterns," to have exactly imitated the towers, steeples, figures and rocks of Japan according to designs of such found on imported specimens. "Perhaps we have helped them a little in their proportions where they were lame or defective, and made them more pleasant, yet altogether as Antick. Had we industriously contrived the prospective, or shadowed them otherwise than they are: we should have wandered from the Design, which is only to imitate the true genuine Indian work, and perhaps in a great measure might puzzle and confound the unexperienced Practitioner."
It may interest readers to know the market prices of some of the materials used in 1688. Seed-lac, 14s. to 18s. per lb.; gum sandrack, 1s. to 1s. 2d. per lb.; gum animæ, 3s. to 5s. per lb.; Venice turpentine, 1s. 6d. to 1s. 8d. per lb.; white rosin, 4d. to 6d. per lb.; shell-lac, 1s. 6d. to 2s. per lb.; gum arabic, 1s. per lb.; gum copall, 1s. to 1s. 6d. per lb.; gum elemni, 4d. to 5d. per oz.; benjamin or benzoine, 4d. to 8d. per oz.; dragon's blood, 8d. to 1s. per oz. "Brass dust," Stalker says, cannot be made in England, though it has often been tried. The best, we learn, comes from Germany! He goes on to describe various metal-dusts, such as "Silver dust," "Green Gold," "Dirty Gold," "Powder tinn," and "Copper." Of the makers of "speckles" of divers sorts—gold, silver, copper—"I shall only mention two, viz. a Goldbeater, at the hand and hammer in Long Acre; and another of the same trade over against Mercers Chappel in Cheapside."
The twenty-four pages of "Cutts" include designs for "Powder Boxes," "Looking glass frames," "For Drauers for Cabbinets to be placed according to your fancy," and "For a Standish for Pen Inke and paper which may also serve for a comb box." The drawings include "An Embassy," "A Pagod Worshipp in ye Indies," and another sketch in which the central figure would appear to be a hybrid Red Indian before whom several devotees are grovelling.
We have quoted John Stalker at some length as giving interesting sidelights on an industry occupying the attentions of a numerous class in his own day. For the actual carrying out of the methods employed we must refer the reader to the book itself—a book which is invaluable to any one who has a piece of Old English lac in want of repair. There is an old-world charm about the work of the Stalker and contemporary schools, but in point of real beauty it is as far removed from the Japanese lacquer as the "Oriental" porcelain of the eighteenth-century European factories is from its Chinese or Japanese prototype. The complaint has often been made of the lack of perspective in the Oriental decorations. This may be said, to use a hackneyed phrase, to be the defect of its qualities. We have by this time come to see things to a certain extent through Japanese eyes, and have learnt to love the defect.
The artist of Old Japan—be he painter, potter, metal-worker, or lacquerer—was an artist to his finger-tips, and his work was full of a symbolism utterly incomprehensible to the Western mind. Those in Japan who know will tell you that a master lacquerer of the seventeenth century would spend many years on the decoration of a simple, small box. In the initial stage—the preparation of the background—it has been calculated that 530 hours are required in the aggregate for drying the various layers; but the young ladies at Mrs. Priest's school at Great Chelsey in the seventeenth century expect, by the aid of Stalker's instructions, to learn the art in twelve lessons! Honest John Stalker thinks he can improve upon his Japanese models, with the result that, whilst we may have a little less of the "defect," we have scarcely any of the "qualities." It is ever thus when West attempts to copy East.
We may mention in passing that the French furniture-makers of the eighteenth century utilised, in the production of some of their finest commodes, drawer-fronts and panels of genuine Japanese lacquer which must have been manufactured specially for the French market, exhibiting, as they do, shapes quite foreign to anything in use in Japan. It is highly probable that these serpentine and bow-shaped drawer-fronts were sent out to Japan to receive their decoration. In the "Jones Bequest" at the Victoria and Albert Museum, we can see superb examples of such belonging to the period of Louis XV. It is said that Madame Pompadour expended 110,000 livres on Japanese lacquer. Marie Antoinette's collection in the Louvre is considerable; but it is quite certain that the finest examples of the art never left Japan. Mr. Huish, to whose book we have above referred, gives some interesting statistics pointing to the scarcity of fine old lacquer in this country during the early days of trade with the East. In one year during the eighteenth century eleven ships sailed, and, whilst carrying 16,580 pieces of porcelain, they brought only twelve pieces of lac.
To-day Old English lacquered furniture is much sought after, and prices are advancing rapidly. The coloured varieties include red, blue, green, violet, and occasionally buff.
The red in particular is highly prized. Black lac, which was made in great quantities in every shape of furniture, is still comparatively plentiful. An early eighteenth-century grandfather's clock, which might fetch anything from five to ten pounds if the case were of plain oak, would have a selling value of from ten to twenty pounds if lacquered.
Evidence points to the fact that, in the majority of cases, the lacquer was an afterthought. The furniture of the day was turned out, in the ordinary course of trade, quite innocent of lacquer, and afterwards treated by professional japanners—sometimes maltreated by amateurs. Not long since, in our own day, there was a similar craze for covering furniture with enamel paints.