Editing Japanning (section)

==Development in Europe==
As the demand for japanned goods grew, the Italian technique for imitating Asian lacquerwork also spread. The art of japanning developed in seventeenth-century Britain, France, Italy, and the [[Low Countries]]. The technique was described in design and pattern manuals such as Stalker and Parker's ''Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing'', published in Oxford in 1688. Colonial Boston was a major center of the japanning trade in America, where at least a dozen cabinetmakers included it among their specialties. In England, decoupage, the art of applying paper cutouts to other items, became very popular, especially the [[botanical]]ly inspired works of [[Mary Delany]].

A large amount of early amateur japanning can be attributed to the rise of the artform as a suitable pastime for young ladies between the late 17th and 18th century. [[Molly Verney]] is noted as one of these early adopters of the craft which was subsequently taught in London, but a number of pattern books such as ''Art's Master-piece. OR, A Companion for the Ingenious of either Sex'' (1697), ''The Art of Japanning: Varnishing, Pollishing, and Gilding ... Published at the Request of Several Ladies of Distinction'' by Mrs. Artlove (1730), ''The Lady's Delight, or Accomplished Female Instructor'' (1741), ''Study and Practise the Noble and Commendable Art of Drawing, Colouring and Japanning ... with Plain and Easy Rules for the Ladies Japanning'' (1751), ''The Ladies Amusement or, Whole Art of Japanning Made Easy'' (1758, 1762 & 1771), & ''The Young Ladies School of Arts'' by [[Hanna Robertson (autobiographer)|Hannah Robertson]] (1766) were all aimed at a female audience, and some of which were also written by female authors.<ref>The London Experience of Secondary Education, Margaret E. Bryant, 1986, p75, Athlone Press</ref><ref>The Learned Lady in England, 1650-1760, [[Myra Reynolds]], 2019, Chapter 3, Education</ref> Certainly by 1710, "japanning" was regarded by many including [[Alexander Pope]] as a feminine pastime.<ref>Objects, Audiences, and Literatures: Alternative Narratives in the History of design, David Raizman, Carma Gorman, 2009, p16</ref> These mock lacquerware techniques were often suggested to be applied to textiles, and by the 18th century are found on cabinets, tea-trays, powderboxes, drawers, and large flat English household furniture in the manors and houses of the landed gentry. 

[[File:Commode from Strawberry Hill House, Pierre Langlois, London, 1763, Chinese lacquer, japanning, brass mounts, verde antico marble - California Palace of the Legion of Honor - San Francisco, CA - DSC02816.jpg|left|thumb|Walpole commode from Strawberry Hill House]]
Drawing on the [[grotesque body|grotesque]] forms derived from travellers accounts and artwork from the ''[[East Indies|Indies]]'' these conflated forms went so far from the source material, they can said to be an early form of [[Japonaiserie]] in the UK. Popular motifs included landscapes containing 'woods, cottages, rivers, trees, hills, sun, moon [&] stars'.<ref>Women and Things, 1750-1950: Gendered Material Strategies, Maureen Daly Goggin, Beth Fowkes Tobin, 2017 / No.5 ; Womens Crafts, Ariane Fennetaux, 2017</ref> Other popular adopters included the wife of [[Robert Walpole]], Lady [[Catherine Walpole]] in 1732. One of her 'japanned cabinets' was bought and displayed in the Blue bedroom by [[Horace Walpole]] in his [[Strawberry Hill House]].<ref>Tides in English Taste 1619-1800, Beverly Allan, 1958, p.206</ref> The popularity of japanning continued to be seen as a womanly pursuit until 1760, by which point it began to become a commercial trade in the UK. 
Today, japanning exists primarily as a conservation craft – it so extremely rare to make it for new items so it is taught from a conservation/restoration approach for example as part of the City & Guilds three-year Conservation course and Painter Stainers Decorative Surface Fellowship.
===Wolverhampton and Bilston===
[[File:Niphon Works Building at Blakenhall, Wolverhampton (geograph 2153711).jpg|thumb|Robert Stroud & Co's Niphon (Japan) Works, c. 1865. Lower Villiers Street, Blakenhall Wolverhampton]]
[[Wolverhampton]] and [[Bilston]] were important centres for the manufacture of japanned ware. Trade directories for 1818 list 20 firms of japanners in Wolverhampton and 15 in Bilston.<ref>The history of Wolverhampton, the city and its people http://www.wolverhamptonhistory.org.uk/work/industry/japanning{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>  According to Samuel Timmins' book ''Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District'', published in 1866, there were 2000 people employed in the japanning and tin-plate industries in Wolverhampton and Bilston at the time.  Japanning firms ranged in size from small family workshops, which often adjoined the proprietor's home, to a few large factories employing over 250 people. In the larger workshops, the production of tin plate and papier-mâché articles and the japanning process all took place under one roof, while small workshops tended to carry out only one or two of the trades, usually tin-plate working and japanning.

[[File:Sunbeam motorcycle logo.jpg|thumb]]At the height of its popularity, richly decorated japanned ware was to be seen in every middle-class home, but from the mid-19th century, this began to change. By the 1880s, the japanning and tin-plate industries were in decline. This was due partly to changes in fashion and taste and partly due to the development of electroplating.  In response, makers of japanned ware began to focus on more utilitarian items, including japanned cash boxes. Many turned to other trades, including enamelling, electroplating and the manufacture of copper and brass coal scuttles, fire screens and kettles. By the 1920s, the [[West Midlands (region)|West Midlands]]' decorative japanned ware industry had largely died out.  Many firms began to supply japanned metal to the newly established bicycle and motor vehicle industries, and some even made their own bicycles. The most successful of these was [[John Marston (businessman)|John Marston]], whose japanning factory began making bicycles in 1887. The bicycle manufacturing part of the business quickly became more successful than the production of decorative japanned ware. Marston's wife thought the gilt on the black japanned bicycles looked like sunbeams and the bicycles were branded [[Sunbeam Cycles|Sunbeam]] and their factory was named [[Sunbeamland]].