"The most valuable furniture of lackered ware, viz., cabinets, chairs, tables, baskets, and other things of that sort, as also the richest porcelain ware, come from Japan. For when the Emperor sends any person to Japan in a public character, most of the princes and great men of the court seldom fail to engage him to bring them some of those things at his return. . . .

PLATE LIV - Interior, by Cornells '/'roost. RIJKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM.

"After the lackered ware of Japan, that of the province of Fokien, is looked upon as the best; but none of it comes to Pekin because the great lords of China oppress the merchants to a great degree and take their goods from them upon many frivolous pretences, without leaving them the least hopes of ever obtaining any payment.

"They have at Pekin a people dexterous enough at lackering, but their works fall short of those of Japan and Fokien, which may be attributed to the difference of climate; and it is for this reason that the lackered work made at Pekin is always much cheaper than the other. Nevertheless, the lackered work made at Pekin infinitely exceeds any work of that kind made in Europe. . . . The European merchants carry away from Canton raw silk; damasks wrought according to draughts furnished to them; wrought silks; lackered ware; tea, green and bohea; badians, a seed having a taste like aniseed; canes and chinaware, made according to models given them.

"For the rest they carry to China from Europe, and bring back from China, a very great variety of toys and different sorts of curiosities, upon which they make a very considerable profit; but these are so numerous that it is not possible to furnish a complete specification of them."

During the eighteenth century Dutch and Belgian furniture, in common with English and German, humbly submitted to the dictates of the great French designers. The Singerie, Chinoiserie and Rocaille work of Watteau, Boucher, Meissonnier, Oppenord, Cressent, Huet, Gillot and others were welcomed and adapted to local tastes in the Low Countries. Many of the most beautiful cabinets and china-closets of the Regence and Louis Quinze period that are preserved in Continental museums owe their origin to the skilled workmen of Belgium, especially of the School of Lille. Many fine specimens of the decorative work of this period may be seen in the Lille Museum. A typical example from Liege appears in Fig. 46. This shows the use as an ornamental feature of the broken curve, the auricle, a more sober descendant of the style auriculaire. The use of this ornament encountered rabid opposition in Regency days in France, England and the Low Countries, but it forced its way into favour shoulder to shoulder with the Chinoiserie, Singerie and Rocaille ornamentation. This double-bodied cabinet is made for the preservation and display of delft and porcelain.

Ledges at the top are also provided for urns and jars as decorative accessories.

It may be interesting to see what a typical china-cabinet contained at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1700, we note one of carved walnut with four doors. In the lower compartment there were twenty vases of red India ware, a porcelain vinaigrette, a cup of enamelled glass, a little horn cup and a multitude of miscellaneous curios. Another cabinet having two lower doors, a middle drawer and one glass door above, contained fine delft vases, two cups and saucers, a big faience jug and two little ones, six big rare sea-shells and other Oriental curios.

Fig. 46. - Cabinet from Liege. Fig. 47. - Dutch Mirror Frame.

Dutch art was now in its decadence; it had lost its pre-eminence. The French artists set the fashion. The painter who is commonly held responsible for the decadence is Gerard de Lairesse (Liege, 1641-1711). He shows all the technique of the old school, and arranges his compositions in accordance with the laws of Italian taste, but he is decidedly artificial. His contemporaries and successors are feeble imitators of the Great and Little masters, and those who have the greatest reputations are miniaturists and still-life painters.

For Dutch interiors we now have to go to the pastels of Cornells Troost (Amsterdam, 1697-1750), whose compositions gained for him the name of the "Dutch Hogarth." Two reproductions of interiors by this artist are shown in Plates LIV and LV. The chairs, tables, sideboards, candlestands, chandeliers, buffets and chimney-pieces in these pictures in nowise differ from those used in England during the early Georgian era.

Dutch taste ran to heaviness and over-loading in ornamentation. During the Louis Quinze period, Schu-bler was more in favour in wealthy Dutch houses, as he was in Germany, than were the French designers of a lighter touch.

A handsome example of Dutch carving of the early eighteenth century is shown in the mirror frame in Fig. 47. This is of carved and gilded wood, representing scrolls, leaves, flowers, a mascaron and a female figure issuing from one of the scrolls. "This kind of mirror, made to be hung upon the woodwork or tapestries of the rooms, is often of a rather heavy and inelegant execution," writes a critic, who referring to this special example continues," but in this specimen where the outlines are so accentuated the effect is quite happy. The hooks intended for the metal sconces in the lower part of the frame should be noticed."

Holland was profiting so much by her mercantile ventures and, perhaps, unscrupulous trade dealings as to arouse bitter envy, jealousy and animosity. The famous despatch of Canning:

"In matters of business the fault of the Dutch Lies in giving too little and asking too much," would have been investigated a century earlier by both English and French merchants if they could have forced their Governments' hands. Thus in The Trade and Navigation of Great Britain Considered the following occurs: