AN ANGLO-JAPANESE MOTHER-OF-PEARL, BONE AND IVORY INLAID MAHOGANY DISPLAY CABINET

The opening up of Japan to large scale trade with the west during the 1850s and 1860s inspired a flurry of interest in Japanese design aesthetic which inspired the work of architects, designers and artists of the period in both France and Victorian Britain. Strains of this influence can been identified with the Aesthetic movement and significant designers of the period include Christopher Dresser, E.W.Godwin and the manufacturer James Lamb. In France the taste for the Japanese style was defined under the title 'Japonisme' coined in 1872, where romantic motifs and naturalism were combined with an amalgam of style to create an atmosphere, instead of creating an accurate representation.