T is surprising how few have survived. New
Status: Planning
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From: Gallinaro E. <ba...@no...> - 2009-09-04 17:13:51
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Tiful red lacquer work is getting scarce, although it has had a long run, for it is more than twelve hundred years since the Japanese learned the secret of making it from the Coreans, who in their turn had it from the Chinese. The secret of producing in China and Japan lacquer which cannot be imitated in other countries lies in the _rhus vernificifera_ which flourishes in those localities. It is the gum of that tree commonly called the lacquer-tree, which when taken fresh and applied to the object it is intended to lacquer turns jet-black on exposure to the sun, drying with great hardness. It will thus be seen that although French and English lacquers have been very popular, the imitation lacquer applied can have neither the effect nor the durability of the natural gum which sets so hard, and in the larger and more important objects can be applied again and again until quite a depth of lacquer is obtained, sometimes encrusted over with jewels and other materials embedded in it. The best English lacquer was made in this country between the years 1670 and 1710, and was a very successful imitation of the Oriental. At that time and during the following century very many tea caddies, trays, screens, trinket boxes, and even furniture, were imported; and it was those which English workmen copied, gradually increasing the variety of household goods for which that material was so suitable. [Illustration: FIG. 94.--OLD POWDER FLASKS. (_In the Victoria and Albert Museum._)] Old English lacquer differed from the more modern papier-mache in that instead of the pulp being composed entirely of paper, glued together and pressed, it was composed of a basis of wood, covered over with a black lacquer, on which the design was painted in colours. It was made under considerable difficulties, in that it had to compete with the imported Oriental wares which were made in China and Japan under more favourable natural conditions. The art of japanning was revived in England late in the eighteenth century, and some remarkable pieces appear to have been the work of amateurs who painted and gilded so-called lacquer work, tea caddies, and jewelled caskets. It must be remembered that the art of japanning was looked upon at one time as an accomplishment, for about the year 1700 many gentlewomen were taught the art. French artists took up the Oriental style, and produced some very successful lacquer work, striking out in an entirely distinct style, which, as Vernis Martin decoration, became famous |