The taste for Chinese and Japanese art was very insistent, but at the same time only skin-deep. There was no true feeling for the profundity of the wonderful art in the patient work that produced the Chinese and Japanese lacquer. It was regarded as a toy. However, progress is noticeable, and fashion gladly welcomed the art products of the Far East. In _Angola_, a novel within the period, we read: “Upon my word!” says the Count to the Countess, “you have a splendid chimney-furnishing, and those Chinese cabinets are charming. Is this the _rue du Roule_?[16] I am simply crazy about that little man. Everything that he sells is so expensive and scarce.” “Oh,” says the Countess, “it is a pretty good selection.” “Well,” replies the Marquis, “there is simply a divine taste in everything there. There are little divinities in the most wonderful forms. This one, for instance; this and your fool of a husband are as like as two peas.” Another description from the same work and in the same tone tells us a “_lit de repos_, in a niche of damask, coloured rose and silver, looked like an altar consecrated to delight; an immense screen surrounded it, and the rest of the furniture was in perfect accord with it; consoles, jasper corner-shelves, China cabinets loaded with the most rare pieces of porcelain, and the chimney-piece was decorated with corpulent gods of the most wonderful and clownish shapes.”
These Chinese cabinets were principally of lacquer, more or less adapted to French demand. Just as soon as the French taste required Oriental goods, orders were sent abroad and the “Heathen Chinee” was quick to supply the foreign market. The native art was gladly modified by the merchants in accordance with the demands of foreign trade. Sometimes even French and other goods were transported to China to have the finishing touches added there. Of course, the time came when native craftsmen tried to meet the demands of fashion by imitations of the Eastern ware. The trouble was that for a long time the home workmen could not produce the proper varnish and make a satisfactory lacquer. Some workmen boldly used native varnishes without attempting to imitate the Chinese and Japanese, and produced charming work of the most delicate finish; but these, unfortunately, scarcely outlasted the special entertainment for which they were manufactured. The undoubted chiefs of these varnishers were the Martins. In 1744, a decree of the Council allowed “_au Sieur Étienne Martin le cadet exclusivement à tous autres, à l’exception du Sieur Guillaume Martin_,” the privilege of manufacturing for twenty years all kinds of relief-work in the Japanese and Chinese taste. In addition to the above-mentioned, we must not forget the brothers Julien and Robert. The number of panels, carriages, sedan-chairs, boxes and ceilings and walls that they varnished is innumerable. The rage for their work was such that the wonderful Boulle-work in marquetry on the walls of Versailles that Louis XIV. had had executed for his son were destroyed and replaced by Martin decorations on a green background. They also did a lot of work for Madame de Pompadour at Bellevue. Their fame spread, so that Frederick the Great summoned Robert’s son, J. A. Martin, to decorate Sans Souci. Voltaire even thought the Martin work worth writing couplets in its praise.