Speaker
Naomi Collick (Curator, Chiddingstone Castle)

About the Talk
The last private owner of Chiddingstone Castle, Denys Eyre Bower (1905 – 1977), collected objects decorated with Japanese urushi lacquer around the 1920s to the 1970s. He moved into the castle in 1955, arranged his Japanese collection in two of the rooms, and opened his home to members of the public who could purchase tickets to have a look around.

Bower benefitted from the sale of Japanese lacquerwares from important collections which were formed during the Meiji period (1868 – 1912). Despite the fading popularity of Japanese lacquer in Europe, Bower followed his personal interest and built an important and varied collection. The Japanese lacquerware collection is known today as one of the most significant in the UK.

Letters, books, notes, and photographs in the castle archive give us an insight into why Bower collected Japanese lacquerwares, what he knew about them, what he valued, and how he presented them for his visitors. This talk will introduce Bower’s Japanese urushi lacquer collection, its historical context, and the story of how it came to be displayed at Chiddingstone Castle.

About the Speaker
Naomi Collick began her role as Curator at Chiddingstone Castle in 2018. The castle is a historic house and museum which holds the Japanese, Buddhist, Stuart and Jacobite, and Ancient Egyptian collections of the last owner Denys Eyre Bower. She is a graduate of Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford and the History of Art and Archaeology of East Asia at SOAS. Her areas of interest are Japanese art from the Edo and Meiji periods, and the display of Buddhist art in museums.