ABSTRACT
The so-called “Ambras Cabinet” in the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM) in Vienna is a small piece of furniture meant to be set up on top of a table for keeping writing materials and valuables (Figures 2.4.1 and 2.4.2). 1 The cabinet was produced in Japan for European customers during the decades around 1600, and belongs to a larger group of Japanese lacquers, ceramics, textiles, and metal work, as well as paintings and prints, that are commonly termed “Nanban art.” 2 Nanban, literally “Southern Barbarians,” was one of the monikers given by the Japanese to foreigners arriving from any southerly direction. The term refers, especially, to the Portuguese (who reached the Japanese islands in 1543) and the Spanish (who landed there with increasing frequency following a dynastic union with Portugal in 1580). Nanban art includes both objects that were made for export and others that were made for the domestic Japanese market to satisfy a growing demand for foreign styles and materials.
