Quick Answer: What Is Chengdu Lacquerware?
Chengdu lacquerware (成都漆器, Chéngdū qīqì) is a Sichuan craft that shapes and decorates objects with successive coats of tree-sap lacquer. Makers work on supports such as wood and layered cloth. They can polish the surface, cut patterns into it, add color to recessed designs or build ornament above it. [1][4][5]
- Body: The underlying form supports the finish.
- Surface: Repeated coats build a layer that can carry detailed ornament.
- Tradition: Chengdu lacquer art entered China’s national heritage list in 2006. [1][4][5]
Museum objects show the craft’s long regional history, while workshop records explain how its present methods are taught. [1][2][6]
A glossy red or black finish reveals little about what lies underneath. Looking first at the shape, then at the depth of the pattern, helps separate the work that forms a piece from the work that decorates it.
What Han Lacquerware Reveals About Chengdu
Chengdu Museum describes the Han workshops of Shu and Guanghan as producers of lacquer objects for daily and court use. The workshops made everyday vessels as well as lacquer pieces that took their shapes from bronze ritual wares. The surviving forms include ear cups (耳杯, ěrbēi), with a grip projecting from either side. Some court pieces had gilded copper fittings on the rim or the grips. [2]
A different example comes from Laoguanshan in Chengdu itself. The museum catalogs a painted Western Han lacquer figure marked with lines and points interpreted in relation to medical knowledge. The figure’s paint carries information about the body, while the cups show how lacquer was used on vessels. Their different functions make clear how widely workshops could apply the material. [2][3]
How the Body and Lacquer Layers Are Made
The lacquer comes from the sap of a tree. It forms a hard film as it cures, and craftspeople can build up a coating in successive thin layers. This is why Chinese lacquerware can carry a smooth, continuous finish over an underlying body made of another material. [4]
A Chengdu workshop account describes forming some bodies with layers of lacquered silk or hemp cloth over a temporary form. Once removed from the form, the shell carries its own shape. On a wood-based piece, the core stays inside. Either body can take a continuous coating. Polishing makes the surface read as a whole and can reveal how a raised motif differs from the ground around it. [4][5]
How to Read the Decoration
In carve-and-fill decoration (雕嵌填彩, diāoqiàn tiáncǎi), the maker cuts a design and adds color within it. Incised lines can remain legible as lines, while a filled passage makes an area of color. The heritage register also names decorative work involving thin tin and fine tool marks. On a finished piece, it helps to see whether the pattern comes from a line cut into the coating, color set into a recess or a shape raised above the surface. [1][5][6]
Raised lacquer gives a different effect. A workshop account illustrates a red vessel with flowers and leaves built in dark lacquer and accented with gold and silver powders. The pattern catches light because it sits above the ground. The play of shadow along the relief belongs to the shape of the ornament as well as its color. [5]
How Makers Keep the Craft in Use
The national register names Song Xiping (宋西平, Sòng Xīpíng) as a representative practitioner. She began training under Chen Chunhe in 1972 at the lacquer workshop of Chengdu’s arts and crafts institute. She learned to make the body, apply and polish lacquer, and carve ornament. Her national heritage profile singles out carved and filled designs and decorative work with thin tin as her specialties. Her training spans the stages hidden beneath those details. [6]
A lacquer exhibition at Jinsha Site Museum brought together about 60 works or sets by practitioners and universities from Chengdu and Chongqing. Museum collections preserve early objects, while exhibitions of contemporary work give visitors a way to see changes in subject and form within living Chinese traditional crafts. [3][7]
FAQs About Chengdu Lacquerware
Is every piece made over wood?
Some pieces have a wooden core. The Chengdu craft also includes hollow shells made with layers of lacquered cloth shaped over a removable form. [4][5]
Is Chengdu lacquerware always carved?
The finish can be polished, painted, carved, filled or built up into relief. Particular objects may combine several decorative methods. [1][5]
When was Chengdu lacquer art listed as national heritage?
Chengdu lacquer art joined the first group of national intangible cultural heritage listings in 2006. The register identifies the craft as a traditional skill from Chengdu, Sichuan. [1]
Sources
[1] China Intangible Cultural Heritage Digital Museum. Chengdu Lacquer Art
[2] Chengdu Museum. What If You Lived in the Han Dynasty?
[3] Chengdu Museum. Painted Figurine Marked with Meridians and Acupoints
[4] The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Lacquerware of East Asia
[5] China Intangible Cultural Heritage Digital Museum. Lacquer Art from Western Shu
[6] China Intangible Cultural Heritage Digital Museum. Representative Practitioner: Song Xiping
[7] Jinsha Site Museum. Exhibition for Lacquerware