Lacquer

The resin of the sumac tree, used as a coating to harden and strengthen manufactured items. This varnishing substance was used from prehistoric times and was indigenous to southern and central China. Applied in many coats to a core made of wood, fabric, paper, baskets, leather, ceramics, etc., it forms a tough and durable protective surface, resistant to water and capable of a high polish. In China lacquered vessels were made as early as the Shang dynasty. Lacquer is often colored red or black.

The juice of the lac tree, Rhus verni-cifera, a natural varnish which hardens on exposure to air. Applied in many coats to a core made of wood, fabric, or cloth-covered wood, it forms a tough and durable protective surface, resistant to water and capable of a high polish. In China lacquered vessels were made as early as the Shang dynasty. The oldest securely dated examples, a few fragments from Gaocheng Taixicun (cl4th century bc), are decorated in the two staple colours of later Chinese lacquers, black and red. A few other Shang and Western Zhou examples have been unearthed, but lacquers are found in large numbers only at Eastern Zhou and Han sites of the 5th century bc and later, when the lacquer industry seems to have flourished on an unprecedentedly large scale. Waterlogged tombs in or near the territory of the Chu state have yielded spectacular finds of perfectly preserved lacquers, including not only vessels, cosmetic boxes and other luxury goods but also musical instruments and even coffins (see Linyi, Mawangdui, Jiangling, Sui Xian, Xinyang, Yunmeng). These Eastern Zhou and Han lacquers are decorated with painted designs of extreme refinement in which the usual red and black pigments are sometimes joined by green, yellow, brown, white, gold and silver; occasionally they are also fitted or inlaid with shell, bronze, gold or silver. Painted coffins like those from Sui Xian must have been extraordinarily expensive; Han texts say that lacquer vessels were more prized and far more costly than bronze (so that in later periods they came under increasing competition from ceramics). Some Han lacquers carry dated inscriptions that name not only the state-operated factory where an object was made (see Chengdu) but also all the artisans responsible for the successive stages in its manufacture, attesting a very considerable division of labour. Lacquer production has continued to the present day in both China and Japan, since the Han dynasty relying for decoration more on inlays and carving than on painting.