376 ART INDUSTRY AND RELATED OCCUPATIONS. 



the stiff silk cover which went around the chest and protected it. 

 Highly prized as were the beautiful fabrics, bronzes and fine 

 ceramics, the old prosperous families seem to have valued nothing 

 so much, next to their swords, as a fine piece of lacquer work 

 from the hand of a recognised master. 



As the old order of things in Japan was broken up, Shoguns 

 and Daimios lost their power, and many beautiful specimens of 

 industrial art which had hitherto been treated to a certain extent 

 as heir-looms, and had been exhibited and admired with pride and 

 pleasure, were neglected and trifled away, and a large number of the 

 old and valuable lacquered articles came into the hands of traders 

 and strangers. Their price at that time (i 868-1 870) is said to 

 have been so low as to justify the often repeated expression of the 

 seller, that it would be more profitable to burn them and to collect 

 and sell the gold used in making them. 



In order to supply the export of Japanese lacquer wares, which 

 has increased each year since then, and the home demand also, in 

 which the much used vehicles, Jin-riki-shas, figure prominently, the 

 increasing competition sought above all quick and cheap labour 

 on the part of the lacquerer. His talent seemed directed only to 

 this want, and the invention of new forms for knick-knacks and 

 useful articles of all kinds, and to become educated in this direction 

 only. 



The foreign friend and connoisseur of Japanese lacquer work, 

 said rightly, in considering these indications, " Here disappears an 

 illustrious feature from the past of Japan, for it will not be long 

 before the last competent Makiye-shi of the country has passed away, 

 the last who understood how to create with his brush, in the old 

 way, real works of art. Then there will remain only the ordinary 

 manufacture for the daily market, that is to say, only a weak 

 copy of the former artistic ability and accomplishments.^ It is 

 high time therefore, to buy up and to save for our own collections 

 the still remaining products of ancient art." ^ But lo, with this 

 tendency and the impulse which the great International Exhibitions 

 extended to Japan, the price of fine gold lacquer work rose anew. 

 The really artistic lacquer productions were once more made to pay, 

 and the result is that to-day there are Makiye-shi in Japan whose 

 works may be placed side by side with the best of earlier times. 



* Wagener says appropriately, in the repeatedly quoted article on Japanese 

 lacquer wares, that there are the same grades here as between a child's picture 

 book and a miniature painting from a master hand, and that the more often a 

 connoisseur beholds a really beautiful specimen of Japanese lacquer work, the 

 greater will be his pleasure in the art. 



2 The Frenchman Watlin remarked already in 1773, in his work on the lacquer 

 art : " These Asiatic nations (Chinese and Japanese) no longer work so dili- 

 gently and finely since, full of astonishment at our foolish fancies, they cannot 

 furnish the ready made articles fast enough to satisfy our insatiable desires. 

 They work more carelessly in order to increase the quantity. The amateurs 

 therefore also make a great difference between the old and the new lacquer." 



