Displaying items by tag: lacquerware

In the mid-1500s, European merchant ships, loaded with treasures from Asia, began arriving in the port city of Acapulco. The cargo of Japanese lacquerware, Chinese porcelains and ivory carvings from India and the Philippines was bound for Europe. But along the way, many of the objects found their way to markets in Mexico City. Similar stories played out in port cities from Rio de Janeiro to Boston, transforming the Americas into a nexus of global trade and leaving an indelible impact on local art.

To explore the influence of Asian craftsmanship on the art of the early Americas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is hosting “Made in the Americas: The New World Discovers Asia.”

The Dayton Institute of Art in Dayton, Ohio, is currently hosting “Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920-1945,” an intriguing exhibition that explores the influence of the Art Deco movement on Japanese culture. The show, which has been on view at a number of institutions, including the Seattle Art Museum in Washington, the Tyler Museum of Art in Texas, and the Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina, is the first traveling exhibition outside of Tokyo dedicated to Japanese Art Deco. Drawn from the private Levenson Collection of Japanese art in Clearwater, Florida, “Deco Japan” features nearly two-hundred objects, including sculpture, ceramics, glassware, jewelry, textiles, prints, lacquerware, furniture, and paintings, including five works from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

Art Deco emerged in Paris in 1925 at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, where the style was first exhibited.

A window on the private world of China’s Ming and Qing emperors opens october 18, when some 200 works — portraits, costumes, and palace furnishings such as bronzes, lacquerware, and jade—drawn from the holdings of the Palace Museum in Beijing go on view at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition surveys the seminal role of imperial rituals and religion in the Forbidden City, along with hidden aspects of court life from the mid 14th through early 19th centuries.