22 
House 
& Garden 
LACQUERS from FARTHER 
EAST THAN MANDALAY 
The History and Process of Making a Collector s Piece 
The inro or purse hangs front the sash 
of the Japanese kimono by a cord. This 
example is rich in its pattern of gold 
chrysanthemums, the imperial flower 
F EW pieces of the lacquers of China and 
Japan reached the hands of collectors be¬ 
fore the beginning of foreign trade by China 
and the opening up of Japan in the mid-19th 
Century. Just how few may be guessed from 
the fact that the Orientals who allowed over 
16,000 pieces of porcelain to be exported to 
Europe during one of the years of the 18th 
Century permitted but twelve pieces of lacquer 
to leave their shores. And how eagerly these 
bits were sought by the collectors of the time! 
Marie Antoinette was one of them, and the 
Marquise de Pompadour another. The collec¬ 
tion of some hundred pieces is preserved in the 
Museum of the Louvre. Madame de Pompa¬ 
dour was, in all probability, a collector of 
greater discrimination. She possessed rare 
artistic sense and the hundred and ten thou¬ 
sand livres the Marquise expended on her col¬ 
lection tempted even the shut doors of Asia! 
Lacquer undoubtedly originated in China. 
Just when, we may not know, but it is of 
ancient ancestry. In fact, lacquer as a material 
has been used for centuries by the Chinese in 
industrial art. 
We can imagine that lacquer was, at first, 
employed as a preservative for the woodwork 
on which it was used as a coating, developing 
as time went on into a medium for artistic 
work of the highest order. 
The Source and Making of Lacquer 
Lacquer is not an artificial mixture such 
as our copal and other varnishes but is the 
natural product of the Rhus verniciflua, the 
lac tree or ch’i shu of the Chinese. Therefore 
it is practically “ready-made” when extracted. 
The tree abounds in central and in southern 
China and is assiduously cultivated for its valu¬ 
able sap. “This tree,” says Bushnell, “when 
the bark is cut or scored with a pointed bamboo 
style, exudes a white resinous sap, which be¬ 
comes rapidly black on exposure to the air. 
The sap is drawn from the tree during summer 
at night, collected in shells, and brought to 
market in a semi-fluid state, or dried into cakes. 
The raw lac, after pieces of bark and other 
accidental impurities have been removed by 
straining, is ground for some time to crush its 
grain and give it a more uniform liquidity. It 
is then pressed through hempen cloth and is 
a viscid evenly flowing liquid ready for the 
lacquerer’s brush.” 
As to the manufacture of lacquer, Huish 
GARDNER TEALL 
gives the following outline: “Wood is the 
usual basis of lacquered articles. . . . The 
various pieces of wood of which the article is to 
be composed are first cut and fitted; these are 
often no thicker than a sheet of paper. Any 
interstices there may be in the grain or the 
joints are filled with a composition of powdered 
stone or chopped hemp, which answers to our 
system of priming. It is needless to say that 
the wood, which is usually hinoki (cedar) or 
honoki (magnolia), has been seasoned and 
dried. How carefully this was done in the past 
is evident from the fact that an old piece is 
hardly ever encountered which shows signs of 
shrinkage or warping. . . . After the fittings 
of the joints have set firmly, all excrescences are 
ground down with a whetstone, and the whole 
is covered with a thick coat composed of a 
mixture of powdered and burnt clay and var¬ 
nish, which, when dry, is again smoothed down 
with the stone. This done, the article is in 
most cases covered with silk, hempen cloth or 
paper, which is pasted on with utmost care, 
so that neither crease nor joint is seen. . . . The 
piece then receives from one to five thin coats 
of the clay and varnish mixture, each being 
allowed ample time to dry. The surface hav¬ 
ing been made perfectly smooth by use of the 
whetstone, the process of lacquering commences, 
a spatula at first and afterwards a thin flat 
brush of human hair being used to lay it on.” 
There are never less than three nor more than 
eighteen layers of lacquer employed, thorough 
drying being requisite to each separate layer. 
It is interesting to note that several hundred 
hours may be taken up with the preparation 
of the grounding before the actual lacquering 
is commenced! With a paste of white lead 
the artist outlines his design. Next he fills 
in the detail with gold and colors, over which 
a coat of the transparent lacquer is applied. 
“If the parts of the design are to be in relief,” 
says Bushnell, “they are built up of a putty of 
Black and gold are the colors of this 
inro. The netsuke or knob at the top 
of the cord, used to suspend the box 
from the sash, is of rock crystal. This 
is signed by Shiomi Masaneri, a well 
known Japanese lacquerer 
'i i 
An unusual form of inro represents in 
form and design the sacred mountain 
of Fujiyama. .4 rare example signed by 
Kajikawa, a noted Japanese lacquerer 
lacquer colored and tempered with other in¬ 
gredients. In all fine lacquers gold predomi¬ 
nates so largely in the decorative scheme that 
the general impression is one of glow and rich¬ 
ness. The finest gold lacquers are left undec¬ 
orated and owe their beauty to a multitude of 
tiny metallic points shining from the depths of 
a pellucid ground. 
The Chinese Authorities 
In the reign of the founder of the Ming 
Dynasty in China, Hung Wu (A.D. 1387), 
there was published the “Ko ku yao lun,” a 
learned antiquarian, art and literary work writ¬ 
ten by Tsao Ch’ao, and comprised in thirteen 
books. From this we learn of the following 
sorts of lacquer then held in esteem: Ancient 
Rhinoceros Horn Reproductions, Carved Red 
Lacquer, Painted Red Lacquer, Lacquer With 
Gold Reliefs, Pierced Lacquer and Lacquer 
With Mother-of-Pearl Incrustations. Tsao 
Ch’ao’s erudition enables us, I think, to trace 
Chinese lacquer-work back to the Sung Dynasty 
(A. D. 960-1280) with reasonable certainty. 
Another Chinese writer, Chang Ying-wen, 
wrote a little book, the “Ch’ing pi ts’ang” or 
“Collection of Artistic Rarities,” which de¬ 
scribes objects shown in an art exhibition held 
in the province of Kiangsu in the spring of 
1570. After references to lacquers of the Yuan 
and the Sung Dynasties he says: “In our own 
Ming Dynasty the carved lacquer made in the 
reign of Yung Lo in the Kuo Yuan Ch’ang 
factory, and that made in the reign of Hsuan 
Te not only excelled in the cinnabar coloring 
and in the finished body technique but also in 
the calligraphy of the inscriptions scratched 
on the under side of the pieces.” 
Occidental Interest in Lacquers 
There was a notable revival of interest in 
lacquer-work in the years that followed the 
upset condition of China during the close of 
the Ming period when lacquer-work was, of 
necessity, neglected. During the lifetime of 
the Emperor Ch’ien Lung (1736-1796), Pere 
d’ Incarville, a member of the French Academy 
and a Jesuit savant of note, wrote a “Memoire 
sur le Vernis de la Chine,” published with 
illustrations in 1760. We find him saying: 
“Si en Chine les Princes et les grands ont de 
belles pieces faits pour I’Empereur, qui en 
donne, ou ne recoit pas toutes celles qu’on lui 
presente.” This, in itself, stimulated Euro- 
