Rediscovering the lesser-known craftspeople behind fine French lacquer

Hermès, Schiaparelli, Chanel, Bugatti—the SLAM exhibition Roaring: Art, Fashion, and the Automobile in France, 1918–1939 glitters with names that signify luxury design and exquisite craftmanship. Just like today, in the 1920s and ’30s high-end manufacturers boasted meticulous production carried out by expert hands. But who were the skilled makers behind these products? In the case of the workshops of artist and designer Jean Dunand (French, born Switzerland, 1877–1942), the story takes us all the way from Vietnam to France and back.  

Dunand’s rich, glossy lacquer designs adorn items including jewelry and furniture as well as dresser sets and wall panels, such as the examples featured in Roaring. Fascinated by East and Southeast Asian decorative lacquer, he spent the 1910s mastering urushi—a Japanese word referring to specific kinds of distilled tree sap and the durable, dazzling lacquers they form once cured. Through lessons with Japanese artist Seizo Sugawara in 1912, Dunand learned the essential tools and techniques to add lacquer to metalware, his trade at the time. Enchanted by the tricky but versatile medium, he soon branched out into nearly every kind of decorative art—all expertly executed in bold lacquer. 

However, these products were rarely crafted by Dunand alone. According to conservator and author Mechthild Baumeister, through the 1920s and ’30s, Dunand oversaw a staff of 40 to 60 employees, mostly from France’s colonies in Cambodia, Laos, and parts of China and Vietnam, collectively known as French Indochina. France’s modern colonial empire in Asia had begun in the mid–1800s, and it lasted until the 1950s. During this time, French officials assumed governmental roles, rubber and rice plantations were built, and local populations lost their land and livelihoods. According to Charles Keith in Subjects and Sojourners: A History of Indochinese in France, about 200,000 people from the region traveled to France. Some were from elite or royal families, seeking education, artistic connection, or diplomatic ties. Others were servants, cooks, sailors, artisans, and craftspeople. Even more were soldiers conscripted to fight for France in the World Wars. Several of these migrants found their way to Dunand’s workrooms during their time in France.

At the height of Dunand’s popularity, several writers and reporters were invited to his studio. L’Illustration creative director Jacques Baschet visited in 1927, writing for the magazine:  

Leaning over the workbenches, docile to the artist’s directions, we saw a whole team of silent and diligent Asians . . . with agile and meticulous gestures. The European would not lend himself well to the patience of this work, and doubtless there is in this yellow race an ancient sensibility as well as a resignation to the fatal succession of hours which attaches them to this slow and precious labor. 

American sisters Louise and Thérèse Bonney also detailed an encounter with Dunand’s workers in their 1929 pamphlet, A Shopping Guide to Paris. They wrote, “I have never asked [Dunand] where he finds them, but there they are—a dozen or more quiet little Indo-Chinese busy producing lacquer. In other ways seemingly inexpressive, in this particular medium they tell strangely beautiful stories.” Even more press articles commented on the workers’ apparent meek nature and foreign appearance. 

Dunand himself also spoke of his employees and their work. In 1920, he told the French art dealer René Gimpel, “It’ll surprise you to learn that the [curing processes] require damp conditions, and a dark room where water flows continuously, and that success is more certain at the full moon. So you’ll understand that it’s positively Oriental labor!”  

Today, these descriptions read as diminutive and dehumanizing. They depict Dunand’s Indochinese employees and their work with an attitude of Orientalist fascination. They are also typical of evolving racist and xenophobic views in France at the time. During World War I, the French government segregated Indochinese and other nonwhite laborers from white workforces. This isolation stemmed from fears that colonial laborers would fraternize with white French women and learn how to organize from French unions. Perpetuating racist myths of difference helped build this lasting divide. This can aid our understanding of why Indochinese staff in Dunand’s studio worked separately from his other apprentices, described as “young Parisian[s],” by critic Émile Sedeyn, and why popular discourse deemed them more suitable for unpleasant, monotonous kinds of work. In an article for The American Historical Review, scholar Tyler Stovall asserts that this racialized wartime hostility toward colonial laborers “became a significant factor in French working-class life for the first time, establishing a discourse of conflict and intolerance that remains powerful today.” 

Little more has been recorded about workers in Dunand’s studio, but some names remain afloat in the currents of history. Art Deco scholar and Dunand biographer Félix Marcilhac notes the presence of a Madame Nam—reportedly “the best poseuse [positioner] in the studio, carrying out the task of inlaying with great precision”—and a Madame Ho, pictured above applying eggshell to a lacquer piece. Marcilhac also writes that many craftspeople returned to Hanoi after working for Dunand, bringing with them his innovative techniques and setting up their own workshops. One wonders about their own artistic sensibilities, their backgrounds, and their connection to the intricate craft of lacquer. Viewing Dunand’s work today gives us a chance to consider the richness and variety of experiences each object encountered in their skilled hands, even if we don’t know all their names.