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
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