FEW pieces of the lacquer of China and of Japan reached the hands of collectors before the beginning of foreign trade by China and the opening of Japan in the mid-nineteenth century. Just how few may be guessed from the fact that the Orientals who allowed over sixteen thousand pieces of porcelain to be exported to Europe in one of the years of the eighteenth 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 collection of the former of some hundred pieces is preserved in the Museum of the Louvre. Madame de Pompadour was, in all probability, a collector of greater discrimination. She possessed rare artistic sense, and the hundred and ten thousand livres the marquise expended on her collection 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. Lacquer is not an artificial mixture such as our copal and other varnishes but is principally the natural product of the Rhus vernicifera, the Chinese lac tree, Ch’i shu. Therefore it is virtually “ready-made” when extracted. The tree abounds in central and southern China and is assiduously cultivated for its valuable sap.

Usually wood, most frequently cedar or magnolia, thoroughly dried and seasoned, forms the basis of lacquered objects. The form is thinly but securely constructed and primed. The surface is carefully ground down and coated thickly with a prepared varnish. This surface, when dry, is in turn made smooth by abrasion. Next this base is very skilfully covered with a layer of specially prepared silk, paper, or a cloth woven of hemp fibers, all depending upon the size and projected quality of the article. Successive coats of the prepared varnish are then applied, each being allowed thoroughly to dry. Finally the lac is applied, layer after layer, spread on at first, and then added to by means of fine brushes of human hair. Those parts of lacquer-work which stand forth in relief are first built up with a lacquer “putty” of special preparation.

There are never less than three or more than eighteen layers of lacquer employed, thorough drying 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 begun! 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 transparent lacquer is applied.

In the reign of the founder of the Ming dynasty in China, Hung Wu, there was published the “Ko ku yao lun” (A.D. 1387), a learned antiquarian, art, and literary work written 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 with reasonable certainty. Another Chinese writer, Chang Ying-wen, wrote a little book, the “Ch’ing pi ts’ang” or “Collections of Artistic Rarities,” which describes objects shown in an art exhibition held in the province of Kiang-su in the spring of 1570. After references to lacquers of the Yuan and the Sung dynasties he says in effect:

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 Emperor Ch’ien Lung (1736-1796), PÈre 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 piÈces de vernis, ce sont des piÈces faites pour l’Empereur, qui en donne, ou ne reÇoit pas toutes celles qu’on lui prÉsente.” This, in itself, stimulated European interest in collecting lacquer at the time.

In recent years Canton and Fuchow have been centers for the manufacture of painted lacquer, called hua ch’i, and Peking and Suchow for carved lacquer, or tiao ch’i. However, the collector must not look for any pieces of finest quality in the tiao ch’i since the reign of Ch’ien Lung, who lent carved lacquer-work his warmest approbation. We are told of a certain celebrated Arabian traveler, Ibn Batuta by name, who was in Canton about the year 1345 and made note of the excellence of the lacquer-work he found there at that time. That of Fuchow is described in the words of Monsieur PalÉologue as “most seductive to the eye from the purity of its substance, the perfect evenness of its varnished coat, the lustrous or deep intensity of its shades and the power of its reliefs, the breath of the composition and the harmonious tones of the gold grounds and painted brushwork.”

Of late years the collecting of the lacquers of Japan has engaged many of the most enthusiastic and discriminating connoisseurs, and there are many public as well as private collections of lacquer objects in America. Probably the favorite objects in Japanese lacquer are those interesting and beautiful little inro or compartment box, indispensable to every Japanese gentleman’s attire in earlier days, and to which was attached by a silken cord the netsuke, or button, by means of which it was suspended from the obi, or sash. These lacquered inro have not been surpassed for their beauty and are of literary interest.

Of the varieties of Japanese lacquer one may make mention of the nashiji, generally known to Western collectors as “avanturine,” so named by Europeans from its resemblance to avanturine Venetian glass. When kirikanÉ (torn gold leaf) is employed the lacquer is called Giobunashiji. The togidashi lacquer is that in which the pattern is produced by grinding and polishing, revealing the gold ground. Hiramaki-ye is the Japanese term used for all those lacquers which have design not raised above the surface more than the thickness of the lines that trace it. Then there is to be found a combination of the flat-gold lacquer with the relief-gold lacquer. The red Japanese lacquer is known by the native name of tsuishu, and the black lacquer is called tsuikoku; those in which the design is carved out of the lacquer-formed or superimposed layers which are exposed by the incisions of the graver are called guri. The chinkinbori lacquer, in imitation of the Chinese lacquer, is a sort of patterned lacquer, the design of which is produced with a rat-tooth graver and the incision filled up with gold.

Honnami Koyetsu (1556-1637) is one of the earliest Japanese lacquerers of importance whose work has come down to us. Koma Kiuhaka, who died in 1715, was another lacquerer of great distinction, the founder, in fact, of a “school.” Bunsai, Korin, Yastuda, and Yasunari were brilliant followers. Korin (1661-1716) was the most famous lacquerer Japan has ever produced. It was he who first extensively used mother-of-pearl and pewter ornament in Japanese lacquer in combination with the decoration. Collectors will find few signatures on pieces of lacquer; the work itself must be the guide.