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| A japanned tea caddy, probably made by Henry Clay in Birmingham, c. 1770s. Private collection. |
Japanning was the method of lacquering and painting furniture, tin wares and, later, papier mâché, which achieved a highly glossy finish. The process originated in East Asia and pieces began to be brought into Europe from the late 1500s. Due to popular demand, though, and a limit to how much japan-ware could be produced for the European market, it began to be imitated. The most difficult part to imitate was the lacquer. East Asian wares used sap of the toxicodendron vernicifluum tree, native to that area, so those imitating in Europe needed to innovate in producing varnishes. British japanning is thought to have begun in the late 1600s in Pontypool in Wales and then taken up in the English Midland towns of Bilston, Birmingham and Wolverhampton, which dominated the trade for the latter part of the century, as well as being produced elsewhere such as London. There was also an interest in making japanned articles at home.
Although this site is about Birmingham, this post covers the development of japanning in both Wales and the West Midlands, as well as home japanning.
Also see: Basic Black Japanning Recipe (YouTube).
Japanning had been taken up in Birmingham by 1737, as Richard Wilkes remarked in his diary:
Home Crafting
Little is known of the art of crafting japanware at home as it was often not recorded. Several publications helped guide the home maker, the most notable being A Treatise of Japaning [sic] and Varnishing (1688) which outlined the techniques of japanning for 'Gentlemen and Ladies' as well as providing several illustrations for projects. Some of the ingredients included gums to make the varnishes and colours such as 'Dragon's Blood' (a red gum), and 'mussel-shells' were required for mixing the metal powders, such as gold, silver and brass (see book here).
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| Examples of japanned cloth-brushes, from A Treatise of Japanning (1688). |
Over the eighteenth-century japanning became a particularly fashionable pursuit for women. In The Art of Japanning, Varnishing, Pollishing [sic], and Gilding (1730) "Mrs. Artlove" stated that it had been 'Published at the Request of several Ladies of Distinction'.* When Catherine Fox visited a manufactory in Birmingham in 1819 she was pleased in it providing her 'a lesson in Japanning'. She and her friend described the process in their joint diary as they remembered it, including a process of adding the image: 'The gold size is laid on one hour and a half before the dust, which is rubbed with a little ball of leather somewhat resembling a printer's ball'.* The processes were undoubtedly recorded so that Fox could enhance the knowledge of her craft.
With surviving articles, it is often difficult to ascertain whether they were made by home crafters or in manufactories, as in both instances hand painting was used. The image below possibly represents a bought box japanned at home.
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| Japanned box, privately owned. |
Also see: Basic Black Japanning Recipe (YouTube).
Even with japanned goods which were likely made in a japan manufactory, like the navette-shaped nutmeg grater below, it is uncertain where they were made, or when they were made. This is a simple hinged box, with a rasp for grating the nutmeg inside (not pictured).
Pontypool and Usk Trade
Japanning was probably conducted in Pontypool from the late 1600s by the Allgood family, although firm evidence exists only from the early 1700s. Thomas Allgood was involved in the Pontypool metal and coal trades at this time, and his taking up of japanning may have stemmed from developing a varnish made from oil extracted from coal which prevented the tarnishing of metal. This was asserted by William Adams, a late nineteenth-century mining expert.** It is a credible supposition that Allgood's involvement in the local metal rolling trade also benefitted in the production of flat, smooth tin (and occasionally iron) for producing the boxes and other articles to be japanned.
Historian F. W. Gibbs places the importance of the Pontypool trade between about 1716 and 1735 when, he states, 'the term Pontypool Japan became well known and was applied to the type of goods with a brilliant, hard and very durable finish, the result of prolonged stoving'.*3*
Several visitors to Pontypool recorded the trade in their diaries. Richard Pococke visited in 1756:
[from] a thicker kind of plate they make salvers and candlesticks and many other things which they japan; I am told the light parts of this in imitation of tortoise shell is done with silver leaf. They adorn them with Chinese landscapes and figures in gold only, and not with colouring, as at Birmingham. This ware is much better than the Birmingham, but is dear there being only two brothers and their children, who make it and keep it a secret.*4*
Claims of better quality articles should be taken lightly as manufacturers often made such statements, and Pococke's diary suggests that, although entering Birmingham, he did not visit that town's manufactories. By this time the Birmingham and Black Country japan trade was large, probably with some producing poorer quality articles but some japanners sold their best wares as Pontypool,*3* probably as they could fetch a better price. Birmingham japanners such as John Taylor, John Baskerville, and, later, Henry Clay produced highly esteemed wares, competing in quality with the Pontypool wares. Baskerville was noted in the 1753 diary of Reinhold Angerstein who extensively toured both Pontypool and Birmingham japan manufactories. He better outlined the Pontypool process, as well as prices:
there are two brothers by the name of Edward and Thomas Allgood, who from black sheets fabricate bread baskets, tea trays, snuff boxes, and various kinds of sheet metal work that is cut and embossed in rings, and then scoured, dried, varnished and painted in the same way as Mr Baskerville’s factory in Birmingham. An ordinary snuffbox with a golden flower painted on it is sold for 2 shillings, and a smaller version for 18 pence. Tea trays cost from 4 shillings to 18 shillings.*5*
In about 1763 another japan manufactory was opened in Usk, just under eight miles from Pontypool, by other Allgood's. There was clear competition as a toing-and-froing of newspaper retorts from this time oultine.*3* After this time, the Pontypool manufactory declined with the 1774 journal of Henry Wyndham noting as much.*6* The ability of the Birmingham and Black Country japanners to undercut the Welsh makers on price was certainly highly influential in this decline. Despite this, the japan trade in Pontypool and Usk survived on a small scale until about the 1820s or 1830s, when decorative japanware declined in popularity.*3*
Birmingham & Black Country Trade
The japan trade had arrived in the Midlands by the early 1700s, as two japanners can be found in Bilston, north-west of Birmingham, in 1719. One of these was Joseph Allen, who was probably making small articles such as snuff-boxes, as he continued to be recorded in Bilston as a 'toymaker' through the 1720s.*7* Some designs for snuff-boxes produced in Bilston in the 1760s are below.
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| Designs from a 1761 Bilston Pattern Book. |
Japanning had been taken up in Birmingham by 1737, as Richard Wilkes remarked in his diary:
This year the Art of Japanning was brought almost to perfection at least in small Pieces at Birmingham & Wolverhampton. In the former Place by one Taylor who was a Sadler by Trade, & in the latter by one Beto a Painter.
‘Taylor’ was almost certainly John Taylor, a well-known Birmingham toymaker. ‘Beto’ was probably William Beto, whose two son-in-laws later partnered as japanners Jones and Taylor in Wolverhampton. Wilkes continued that 'Snuff Boxes were made in both Places to the utmost Degree of Nicety; & upon them any Peice [sic] of History, [Living] Creatures, Landscapes &c were painted to the Life'.*8* Birmingham and Wolverhampton took prominence in the trade after this time, although, as the design book shows, Bilston continued production. The goods made in the Midlands were predominantly smaller items such as snuffboxes, buttons, trays, and tea caddies.
The success of the Midland japanners was attributed to their production of a cheap but high quality varnish, or lacquer. After his time, it was said that Taylor developed a 'cheap but elegant varnish for snuffboxes, which was his secret'.*9* This shine was a major part of the appeal, so the ability to produce a high-quality varnish at a low price increased a japanner’s chances of success in the trade. Taylor achievement is asserted in 1758 by Robert Dossie who observed the differences between Parisian and Birmingham snuff-boxes, noting that the latter 'when good of their kind, never peel or crack, or suffer any damage, unless by great violence' whereas with the French examples the ‘japan coats […] crack and fly off in flakes, whenever any knock or fall, particularly near the edges’.*10* This was almost certainly due to the Birmingham boxes having more coats of varnish due to the lowered costs.
Later Japanning
In the late Victorian period japanning regained some popularity as interaction with Japan and China increased and piqued interest in these cultures.
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| Mid-Victorian japanned tea tray, sold at Bonhams in 2008 for £840. |
Yvonne Jones has written Japanned Papier Mâché and Tinware, c. 1740-1940 (2012) which contains a detailed history of japanning, here.
Japanners and Japanned Objects
John Taylor (Birmingham japanner) : Balloon Flight Tea-Tray : Samuel Raven's Snuffboxes
John Taylor (Birmingham japanner) : Balloon Flight Tea-Tray : Samuel Raven's Snuffboxes
Japanning in Popular Culture
Listen to The Japanned Box by Arthur Conan Doyle, here. Published in The Strand Museum in 1889.
NOTES
© Jen Dixon 2020. All text belongs to the author (jenni.a.dixon@gmail.com).
* Diary of Catherine Fox and Jean Melville, 1819, Birmingham Archive, reference on request; Mrs. Artlove, The Art of Japanning, Varnishing, Pollishing [sic], and Gilding (London: T. Warner, 1730).** C. Wilkins, The History of Iron, Steel, Tinplate and other Trades of Wales (Merthyr Tydfil: 1903), p. 329.
*3* F. W. Gibbs, 'Historical Survey of the Japanning Trade - III. Pontypool and Usk', Annals of Science, 9 (1953), 197-213 (p. 202).
*4* Richard Pococke, The Travels Through England of Dr. Richard Pococke [...] During 1750, 1751, and Later Years, ed. by James Joel Cartwright (London: Camden Society, 1889), p. 210.
*5* Reinhold Rucker Angerstein, R. R. Angerstein's Travel Diary, 1753-1755, translated by Torsten and Peter Berg (Trowbridge: Cromwell Press, 2001), p. 163.
*6* Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, A Gentleman's Tour through Monmouthshire and Wales, in the months of June and July, 1774, 2nd edn (Salisbury: E. Easton, 1775), p. 16. Digitised here.
*7* Bilston Parish Register, Staffordshire Archives.
*8* Diary of Richard Wilkes, reference on request.
*9* 'Noble's Biographical History', The Eclectic Review (London: Longman, Hurst, Lees and Orme, 1807) III part II, p. 715.
*10* Robert Dossie, The Handmaid to the Arts (London: J. Nourse, 1758), p. 409.
hiefly the MSS. of the Great Mr. Boyle' The Method of Learning to Draw in Perspective made easy and fully explained (1732), Robert Dossie's The Handmaid to the Arts (1758)