Articles
Small square box in cinnabar lacquer * representing on the lid a beautiful bird (phoenix) with outstretched wings surrounded by dragons, sides decorated with geometric friezes, from China, XIXth century.
This box is in good condition.
A note: a few tiny little accidents in the cover inside, some dirt and wear from time, see photos.
In Europe as in India, lacquer is a substance like a gum deposited on trees by certain species of insects, such as "tachardia lacca". This substance collected from the tree has been used to imitate Far Eastern lacquers on Japanese or Chinese style furniture since the 16th century. The lacquer, dehydrated and purified, contains according to the qualities up to 80% of “urushiol” (acid of lacquer). This material, thus pure, can be used directly as a transparent substance. If one wishes to obtain a colored material, it suffices to add special pigments, cinnabar for red, pine or lamp soot for black, and subsequently iron sulphate for black, iron sulphate for black. arsenic for green and brown. For white, mixture of lacquer and lead carbonate (white lead), already used before our era on Chinese lacquers
