5 Euros A Arte da Laca, Silver

Issued as part of INCM's long-running "Artes e Ofícios Tradicionais" series, this piece commemorates lacquerwork as a traditional craft with deep roots in Portugal's historical trade connections with Asia — particularly the techniques absorbed through centuries of contact with Japan, China, and Macau via the Estado da Índia. Portuguese merchants were among the earliest European intermediaries in the lacquer trade, and the craft eventually developed a distinctive Iberian-Asian hybrid form known as Namban lacquer, produced specifically for export to European patrons from the late sixteenth century onward.