Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Monday. Here we go again.
There is a painted style of furniture consisting of a solid wood base followed by fabric, then black, then fine ash is added, followed by colors yellow, red, black, and more red. Each step requires five days before the next can start. Numerous examples exist. Great Britain has unique, but challenged by experts examples. What is the style of furniture?
Re: Monday. Here we go again.
Are there as many examples as there are Chin's in a Chinese phone book?
Tom
bingo!
Re: Monday answer
Tom gets a star for today. He used China as the key, although the Chin dynasty was a bit early. More often it was Quin, Tang, Zhou, Han, Yuan, and Song for the exceptional Chinese pieces. Still, I get it. I�m not out to split layers for dead on, just posing a question. The furniture is the intricately carved lacquer furniture found many places from China to Japan and Korea, but what I was after was the furniture in the throne room of the Forbidden City. Great Britain�s examples are scattered, as are samples from many countries, but one famous piece is in the Victoria and Albert museum. It is a deeply carved vermillion colored throne. It was ransacked from the palace after Western troops relieved the representatives of China's trading nations that were surrounded in Peking in the Boxer Rebellion and at the end of the opium wars.
China's Empress Tzu Hsi played both ends in the wars and when the war finally slipped to the Western powers; she had many of the Chinese participant leaders beheaded as a display in front of them.
As to the technique. The technique was translated as �heaped red� or �heaped black�. It required years to collect and purify the lacquer. Years more to build the hundred (average) layers of colored lacquer on the piece--five days for each layer�coupled with diligent polishing and filling cracks. It took special facilities to keep the air constant in temperature and humidity for the building process. After all the layers were on and polished it took more years to carve the deeply cut designs to the finished product. Each section had to redry after carving. Furniture wasn�t all done in lacquer. There were dinnerware sets and other decorative pieces like bowls and boxes. "Guri" with alternating layers of red and black looks purple to the eye and is special. Today the bright original vermillion red of many old Chinese pieces has evolved to a darker red orange.
In the present we look at similar looking items that are made of modern types of plastic and molded for a similar look, but the real thing�which is still made in the Far East and Pacific Rim will be crisper and unmistakable if magnified, and can knock your socks off.
Check out "Chinese Lacquer Ware" on any browser. �Lacquer Throne, Victoria and Albert� will get a smallish picture of the furniture that inspired todays trivia.