5th International Conference on Okinawan Studies
Imagined Okinawa: Challenges from Time and Space

Donatella FAILLA (Museo d'arte orientale "Edoardo Chiossone")
Ryūkyū lacquerware in the Chiossone Museum of Oriental Art, Genoa

The present day Okinawa Prefecture is a subtropical archipelago formed of about sixty islands strewn between the island of Kyūshū in South Japan and Taiwan . This geographical position favored the development of an eclectic regional culture, at once typical and distinctive, the creative synthesis of the cultural influences of the surrounding countries - principally China and Japan . This cultural irradiation on Okinawa between the late 14^th and the 19^th century is reflected by the artistic production of Ryūkyū shikki 琉球漆器, a local manufacture of lacquer whose political use and social meaning were of foremost importance. It was from Ming China that "a wholesale transfer of Chinese lacquering techniques to the Ryukyus took place in the late fourteenth century ..., and these techniques remained the foundation of Ryukyuan lacquerwork for centuries afterwards" (Watt 1992, p. 333). These techniques are the engraved-gold technique (chinkin 鎗金), mother-of-pearl inlay (raden 螺鈿), applied gold leaf (hakue 箔), and also painting in gold (kindeie 金泥絵), coloured lacquers (iro urushie 色漆絵), and litharge pigments (mitsudae 密陀絵). Typical Chinese techniques of lacquer carving, like tihong 剔紅 and ticai 剔彩, were never adopted in Ryūkyū, and were replaced with tsuikin 堆錦, an imitation made with lacquer putty molded in relief both in red and in colours. Another Chinese method of decoration adopted in Ryūkyū was the employ of basketry panels in boxes and pieces of furniture: a late 18^th century cabinet in the Chiossone Museum is not only a good example to this regard, but also represents an anthology of several different techniques of decoration, simultaneously used on one and the same piece.
In-depth studies on Ryūkyū started in the mid-1970s, revealing the special stylistic features and peculiar characters of Ryūkyūan culture, as well as highlighting the irreparable losses of documents, historical sources and art objects which occurred in Okinawa during World War II. All the more so, it is important to remark that the Ryūkyūan lacquers of the Chiossone Museum were acquired, long before World War II, by Mr. Edoardo Chiossone エドアルド・キオッソーネ (1833-1898) between 1875 and 1898, that is, during the crucial period of the annexation of Ryūkyū to Japan (1879), and around the time of the compilation of the Ryūkyū shikki kō 琉球漆器考 (1888) by the Japanese government official Ishizawa Hyōgo 石沢兵吾. The Chiossone's lacquers are mainly pieces of formal furniture, and exemplify a large part of the techniques and decorative styles of Ryūkyū lacquer traditions from the late 17^th to the mid-19^th century.
Mother-of-pearl inlay was employed in Ryūkyū both on black and red lacquer to decorate high quality pieces which were sent to China and Japan as tributes and diplomatic gifts. Well before 1600, the production of urushi raden 漆螺鈿 was placed under the control of the Bureau for the Polishing of Mother-of-pearl (Kaizuri Bugyōsho 貝摺奉行所), an office directly dependent on the royal household. A very typical Ryūkyūan object was the chūōjoku 中央卓, or centre table, a piece of furniture which functioned as a symbol of the family's social status. Two chūōjoku and a decorative shelf (kazaridana 飾棚) in the Chiossone Museum show the development of raden techniques from the late 17^th to the 19^th century. The earliest of the three pieces is inlaid with thick shell (atsugai 厚貝), and attests to the persistence of Chinese methods of decoration which had already disappeared in Ming China after the 14^th century. The other two pieces show the numerous forms of expression allowed by the thin shell inlay (usugai薄貝).