What are the differences between different lacquerware, how to correctly distinguish a piece of antique lacquerware?

(3) The making of lacquer ware has a long history in our country.

Our ancestors stumbled upon the fact that the grayish white liquid flowing from sumac trees became darker and stronger when it dried up, and they began to think about how to use it. As early as the Hemudu culture period six to seven thousand years ago, people have learned to paint on the surface of the objects, to play a strengthening and decorative role.

Lacquer bowl of Neolithic Age, unearthed from Hemudu Site in 1977, collected by Zhejiang Provincial Museum

With the development of history, the lacquer craft has been innovated repeatedly. The craftsmen use bamboo, wood, metal, pottery and even leather, linen, paper and other materials to make the body of the lacquer, and then paint the body (Yin Xiu, meaning paint on the object) paint, and decorate with a variety of precious materials and clever techniques to make the lacquer.

However, for the unearthed lacquers buried in the ground for hundreds of thousands of years, after water, soil erosion and microbial damage, how to protect them and let them play their value in the study of ancient Chinese lacquers has been a major problem plaguing the archaeological community.

The lacquerware was just unearthed

With the continuous emergence of archaeological achievements and the improvement of cultural relics protection technology, people have a deeper understanding of the origin, evolution and development of various lacquerware decoration techniques in ancient China.

So, what are the common lacquer decoration processes? Let’s take a look.

Monochrome paint

Using a single color of paint on the body of the processed object, this method may seem simple enough, but it is the basis for further decoration of all lacquers. Of course, there were also many lacquerware in ancient China, on which a single color of paint was sufficient without any additional decoration.

Tang Qin “Great sage relic”, Fuxi style, 121 cm long, for the famous cultural relics of Mr. Wang Shixiang old collection.

This instrument is characterized by purple paint, such as chestnut shell color, except for a few parts have been repaired, most of the original paint at that time

According to the different color of the paint, the monochrome paint process also has different names. The black paint on the body is called “black lacquer”, the scarlet paint is called “Zhu lacquer”, the yellow paint is called “yellow lacquer”, the green paint is called “green lacquer” and so on. As for red, yellow, green and other different colors of paint, are mixed with different plant or mineral pigments in the raw paint.

Coloured drawing

After the body of the object is painted with monochrome paint, if you want to further decorate the object, you can use various colors of paint or paint on the lacquer floor of the light pigment. A very common color collocation in lacquer painting is “red and black”.

Western Han Dynasty painted cloud shape fish and bird pattern paint plate, Yangzhou Museum collection

The painted lacquerware of the Warring States and Qin and Han dynasties is mainly red and black in color, with strong color contrast, smooth and dignified lines of patterns, showing the style of The Times.

Of course, there are also many painted lacquerware using a variety of rich colors such as green, white, yellow, making the painted pattern more delicate and realistic.

Western Han Dynasty painted three fish pattern ear cup, Jingzhou Museum collection

rhinoceros

Rhinoceros lacquer, also known as “tiger paint” or “birch paint”. The name inevitably conjures up images of rough things like rhino skin and birch bark. However, the exterior of such lacquerware is smooth. The pattern above the rhinoceros lacquer is composed of different colors of paint layers, generally red, yellow, black, and also useful in red, yellow, green and other colors.

Ming Dynasty red face rhinoceros leather round box, picture from Wang Shixiang “Treasure collection – Li Song Ju long things”

How is this pattern of rhinoceros lacquerware made? According to the memories of the old painter, when making rhinocore lacquerware, the first thing is to primer the tire, and when the primer is not dry, use your fingers to push out uneven patterns on the paint layer.

This process is called “building a bank”. The original meaning of “low bank” is a small embankment used for waterproofing in the field. “Low bank” means a “low bank” built on the flat ground like a embankment.

Red face rhinoceros round box details

After building the embankment, you need to dry the lacquer. Wait until dry, and then the red paint and black paint alternated on the ground at the projection of the pattern, and build the “embankment” higher. After the whole body is painted, it is also red and black, and each paint is dried once, and it can go up to more than 20 ways.

Finally, the artifacts are polished, where the embankment was built before, after polishing, it shows a circle of patterns. The shape and color of the pattern depend on the manipulation of the embankment and the sequence of painting.

According to the different patterns, the patterns of rhinoceroid lacquerware can also be subdivided into chip moire pattern, round pattern, pine scale pattern and so on.

Carved lacquer

In the lacquerware collection displayed in the museum, it is often seen that lacquerware made with carved red, carved color or carved rhinochrome technology. The techniques of these three kinds of utensils can actually be reduced to the category of carved lacquer.

The principle of carved paint is to paint the body of the lacquer layer by layer, reaching dozens or even hundreds of layers, so that the paint on the body has a certain thickness, and then carve various patterns on the thick layer of paint, which is a great test of the skill of the craftsman.

Ming Yongle carved red peony round box, Lushun Museum collection.

The box has five peonies carved on the face, and the knife is mellow and smooth in color

In the painting process before carving, if each layer of paint is red paint, then the carved objects can be called “carved red” objects. Each layer of paint is black paint, called blackening; Each layer of paint is green paint, which is called picking green… And so on.

Through the lacquer surface exposed by the carved pattern, we can roughly judge the number of layers of carved lacquer lacquer, but it is not easy to judge accurately.

According to Gao Lian, a scholar in the Ming Dynasty, “Yan Xian Qing Zhi”, it is recorded that the carved red lacquer ware of the orchard factory in the Ming Dynasty should be “painted 36 times to be sufficient”, that is, on 36 layers of paint. But in fact, carved red objects with one or two hundred layers of lacquer are also seen in lacquerware handed down from generation to generation.

Carved red east fence to pick chrysanthemum picture round box, unearthed in Shanghai Qingpu Ren tomb in 1952, Shanghai Museum collection.

Through this carved red object, you can better feel the thickness of the lacquer layer

The picking process, under normal circumstances, is to use two colors of paint (most of them are red and black), paint a number of layers with one color on the body first, accumulate a certain thickness, and then change another color, regularly alternate the two colors of the paint layer, reach a certain thickness, and then carve.

Yuan Dynasty “Zhang Chengzao” picked moire plate, the Palace Museum collection

Pick the moire tray details, you can clearly see the layers of two colors of paint

The paint layer of the color picking process is more complicated: use different colors of paint on the objects, and let each color layer have a certain thickness; When carving with a knife, which color is needed, the paint layer above it is removed, revealing the required color layer, and carved on it.

The final product can display the effect of “red flower, green leaf, purple branch, yellow fruit, and colored cloud” on one object at the same time.

Ming Jiajing color dragon boat map lotus leaf plate, the Palace Museum collection, the table layers of red, yellow, green paint

It is worth mentioning that in the lacquer process, there is also a method called engraving. Although there is only a word difference between carving and carving paint, the practice is very different. If you decorate the lacquer with a carved method, you must first carve out the pattern on the body of the lacquer, and then paint, so that the pattern will have a three-dimensional sense.

Western Han Dynasty double dragon wearing bi lacquer bed, Yizheng Museum collection. The bed is made of wood, carved into a complex double dragon pattern, painted black on the surface and painted red at the opening

Carving technology has appeared in the Shang Dynasty, and developed to the Han Dynasty, has been able to set a variety of techniques such as transparent carving and relief in one tool. This technique was also used by later generations.

Embossed lacquer

Stacking paint is the process of molding various raised patterns with paint or paint ash on a flat painted floor. There are two main ways to do this.

One is that the color of the pattern piled on the surface is different from the color of the paint, and the complicated process can also be layered with several different colors of paint and piled into patterns.

Northern Song trace gold pile paint Shiri letter, Zhejiang Provincial museum collection

The lacquerware made by this method will also show layers of color on the sides of the pattern, which is similar to the effect of picking. However, the pick focuses on “carving”, and the pile paint focuses on “plastic”, which is the most fundamental difference between the two processes.

The other is to use paint ash to pile on the body or paint floor to create a pattern, and then paint. In this way, the color of the decoration is the same as the ground color of the lacquer, showing the effect of relief.

The dried lacquer sitting statue of monk Jianzhen in Tangpiti Temple, Nara, Japan

The five features and clothing pattern were made with the technique of stacking paint, which is an example of the process of stacking paint in the Tang Dynasty

Conical drawing

This process is also called “needle carving”, as the name suggests, is to use a needle or a small awl to carve out a pattern on an object that has been painted, generally used for small lacquerware. The pattern of cone painting, thin lines, elegant and smooth, full of appeal.

Western Han Dynasty “Yuan Kang four years” inscriptions needle carved mountain tree cloud gas pattern paint plate, unearthed in 1985 West Han Dynasty tomb of Yang Shoubao Nudun, Yangzhou Han Han Han Han Han Han Han

The inner bottom of the disc needle carved mountain tree cloud gas pattern

The decorative technique of cone painting is derived from the carving pattern of bronzes, and the carving pattern is “transplanted” to the lacquer. At the latest in the Warring States period, lacquer cone painting technology has been quite mature. In the early Western Han Dynasty, cone paintings on lacquerware were even more popular.

The inscriptions on the edges of the lacquer plates are also carved with needles, recording the names of the craftsmen and people in charge of the objects

Typical examples of the Western Han Dynasty lacquer cone painting are the four and six lacquer bars unearthed from Liu Wuzhi Tomb in Yangzhou. Liu Wuzhi was an aristocrat of Wu State in the early Western Han Dynasty, and the number of lacquerware unearthed in his tomb was as many as 73 pieces. The shape and pattern of the fourth and sixth bars are similar. The mother bars and bars are painted with black paint on the outside and red paint on the inside. There are cloud pattern, comb tooth pattern and string pattern painted with cones on the lid and outer wall.

The cover of the fourth dowry unearthed from the tomb of Liu Wuzhi in the Western Han Dynasty can be seen with the fine pattern carved by needles

inlay

The scope of the filling process is quite broad, all the patterns carved on the lacquer surface, and then filled with other colors of paint, or mother-of-pearl, glass and other materials, can be included in this category, which can be divided into various categories such as filling paint, inlaying mother-of-pearl, and inlaying treasures.

The method of filling paint is similar to that of the “rhinoceron lacquer” described above: the pattern is carved on the lacquer floor first, and then the low pattern is filled with different colors of paint, and finally the surface of the lacquer is smoothed.

Qing Kangxi filled with lacquer Qiangjin dragon pattern sunflower disc, Palace Museum collection

The most famous lacquer inlay is inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Mother-of-pearl technology both in terms of the complexity of the process and the exquisite degree of the finished product, has left the painting process two streets.

Pieces of lacquer inlaid with mother-of-pearl in the Palace of the Moon of the Yuan Dynasty were unearthed at the site of the Great City of Yuan

Mother-of-pearl art has a long history, as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty has appeared. To make mother-of-pearl lacquer, the shells of snails and shellfish are first processed into flat plates, and then the “shell plates” are cut and polished to make small pieces of various shapes to fully show the pattern and luster of the shells.

Lacquer inlaid with mother-of-pearl inlaid in the Western Zhou Dynasty 罍, unearthed from the Liulihe Yanguo Cemetery, Beijing

Is it very different from the splendid mother-of-pearl lacquer of later generations?

After that, the shell pieces are inserted into the surface of the utensil, and the surface of the utensil is smoothed and polished. The brilliance of the shell complements the shine of the lacquer, revealing an understated luxury.

Making mother-of-pearl lacquer not only requires grinding lacquer, but also grinding shells, which is time-consuming and labor, even the Song Dynasty royal family, who has always loved art, also hates this kind of ware too extravagant, so it was once ordered to ban.

Five dynasties – Northern Song Dynasty inlaid with mother-of-pearl flower pattern Sutra box, unearthed in 1978 Suzhou Ruiguang Temple tower

During the Shaoxing period of the Southern Song Dynasty, someone paid tribute to Zhao Gou, Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty. Emperor Gaozong of Song looked at it and pointed to his own throne and said, “A chair with black lacquer is fine, why use motherlay?” He ordered that the tribute of mother-of-pearl lacquer be burned.

Mother-of-pearl dragon inlaid on the book case

But since then, the “frugal and simple” people of Song Gaozong have been established and praised by their subjects for a long time.

In addition to mother-of-pearl, lacquerware can also be inlaid with a variety of precious materials such as ivory, coral, jade, and jade, and this technique is called “hundred-treasure inlay.” As early as the Han Dynasty, the decoration technique of inlaying agate, mica and other materials on lacquerware had already appeared.

Qingdaoguang “Lukui made” rectangular lacquer sand inkstone box inlaid with rooster picture

The cover is decorated with Xiuyan jade, motherlay, red coral, turquoise, ivory, hawksbill and so on

Gold buckle

In the Ding kiln, one of the five famous porcelain kilns, in order to cover the defects of no glaze along the mouth of the ware, a circle of metal is wrapped in the mouth edge of the ware, which is called “buckle”. Lacquer metal buckle process, the practice is the same.

A group of metal buckle painted ear cups of the Western Han Dynasty, collected by Yangzhou Museum, can be seen that the edge of the ear cup is inlaid with silver, copper, etc

Sometimes, people will put a ring of metal around the mouth edge of the lacquer, the bottom edge, the ear cup and so on. Those inlaid with gold, silver and copper are called gold, silver and copper buckles respectively.

Western Han Dynasty silver buckle painted duck shaped lacquer spoon, Yangzhou Museum collection

Ding kiln artisans make “buckles” for the ware to cover up the lack of glaze along the mouth. However, the paint on the lacquer is painted by hands, and naturally there will be no defects that are not painted somewhere in the ware, so why do you also make metal buckles? In addition to highlighting the identity of the master, it can also play the role of strengthening and protecting the utensils.

bullion

The combination of lacquer and gold and silver can not only improve the appearance level of the object, but also show its luxury and dignity. Taking the combination of gold and lacquerware as an example, there are many kinds of gold decoration techniques for lacquerware, such as attaching gold, tracing gold, halting gold, inlaying gold and shifting gold. In different processes, gold and silver are combined with lacquer in different forms, resulting in different visual effects.

The Southern Song Dynasty Qijin Garden beautiful lady summer lotus petal shaped red lacquer dovetail cover, Changzhou Museum collection

Gold (silver), as the name suggests, is to hammer gold and silver into gold foil, silver foil, cut into a certain shape or broken, pasted on the lacquer. Taking gold leaf as an example, according to the size of gold leaf, there are different titles such as chip gold, bran gold, and sheet gold. Of course, there are also no expense, fully gold-plated objects.

Western Han Dynasty silver buckle gold and silver paste decorated with clouds, birds and beasts figure pattern paint four pieces, unearthed in 1994 in the West Han Dynasty tomb of Cang Jie, Yangzhou Hangyang Temple

Figures, birds and animals made of gold leaf were attached to the lacquer dower

Tracing gold and silver is also very easy to understand. Use appropriate amount of paint, oil and gold powder or silver powder mixed, made of gold, silver paint, paint patterns on the lacquer. As early as the Warring States Period, Chu craftsmen had mastered this technology.

Hand-stove with dragon and phoenix pattern painted in red paint, Palace Museum, Qing Dynasty

Halo gold, halo silver is the use of gold powder, silver powder on the object rendering techniques. This method generally requires painting the objects first, and painting other colors, and applying gold powder when the paint is not dry. The gold powder is thin and dense, and the picture also produces the difference between thick and light and dark, which has a smudge effect.

Gold inlay, silver inlay is the process of setting gold and silver pieces, gold and silver scraps or gold and silver thread on a lacquer surface. The specific method is to make various patterns on the lacquer surface with gold and silver threads, pieces, etc., and then paint several layers, so that the paint is flush with the gold and silver jewelry pieces or higher than the gold and silver jewelry pieces, and then polish the lacquer, so that the pattern is fully revealed.

Five dynasties Yinpingtuo flower pattern lacquer mirror box, Changzhou Museum collection

The process of inlaying gold and silver also has a name, which is called “gold and silver flattening”. The gold and silver pieces are made into various patterns such as figures, animals, flowers and plants, and they are glued to the lacquer surface, then two or three layers of paint, and then ground and polished, so that the gold and silver patterns and the lacquer surface reach the same flatness, it is a gold and silver flat paint remover. The luster of the metal and the light of the lacquer are very beautiful.

Tang Dynasty feather man flying phoenix flower bird pattern gold and silver flat lacquer back bronze mirror, National Museum of China collection

Qiangjin means to use a knife to mark a concave pattern on a lacquer surface, and then fill the groove with gold. It can be seen as the development of cone painting techniques. If the decoration is filled with silver, it can be called “hip silver”.