Economic Botany Collections

Copper plate with flower decoration

This lacquered copper plate, decorated with golden flowers, illustrates the asymmetrical simplicity typical of Japanese design. When Japanese lacquerware became popular in Europe, Europeans were unable to understand or appreciate this asymmetry, and to them the off-centre designs and unadorned spaces seemed flawed. Local western artists were sometimes commissioned to fill in these spaces using shellac, with little effort to match the design style.

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