ation has
been concluded, the article proposed to be lacquered is covered with
some substance, either silk, cloth, or paper. It is then given from
one to five coats of the foregoing mixture, each coat being permitted
to dry before the next is applied. After this has been effected, the
whetstone is again employed with a view of obtaining a perfectly
smooth surface when the lacquering proper commences. This may be a
perfunctory or it may be a very complicated operation, according to
the value of the article, layer after layer of the varnish--from one
to fifty coats--being laid upon the material at intervals. After the
final coat has been applied, the smoothing process commences. The
whole of these operations are, however, only the preliminaries to the
scheme of decoration, which is often very elaborate. The dusts of
powders used for this purpose are of various kinds and of varying
cost. When the ornamentation which often consists in colouring the
groundwork with particles of gold dust has been completed, sometimes
as many as a dozen coatings of transparent lacquer are imposed upon
the same.

The art of lacquering in Japan dates back at least 1,200 or 1,300
years, and tradition assigns it a period more ancient still. There
are, however, few if any articles of lacquer ware now in the country,
whose origin can be traced back so many years. At any rate, there is
no satisfactory evidence in regard to the antiquity of any specimens
of lacquer ware dating back more than seven or eight centuries. In old
Japan the manufacturer of lacquer work was intimately associated with
the domestic life of the upper classes. Griffis tells us that nearly
every Daimio had his Court lacquerer, and that a set of household
furniture and toilet utensils was part of the dowry of a noble lady.
On the birth of a daughter, he relates, it was common for the lacquer
artist to begin the making of a mirror case, a washing bowl, a
cabinet, a clothes rack, or a chest of drawers, often occupying from
one to five whole years on a single article. An inro, or pill-box,
might require several years for perfection, though small enough to go
into a fob. By the time the young lady was marriageable, her outfit of
lacquer was superb.

The names of many of the great lacquer artists of Japan are still
venerated. The masterpieces of Hoyami Koyetsu who flourished in the
sixteenth century, are still, though rare, procurable. Japan numbers
on her roll of fame twenty-eight