Message #51483

[forestman]

Dear Joey,

I have looked through my 25x loupe at the bottle and, besides making my head hurt through  the concentration, it may be that there are over 50 layers due to the depth the carving reaches in places.

I did say in another post about cinnabar lacquer that a 1591 text stated that there was an Imperial order in the Yongle reign that no more than 36 layers of lacquer were to be used so ways were developed to thicken the layers of lacquer because pure coloured lacquer can't be applied in thick layers.

Pure lacquer has a certain viscosity that dictates how thinly it can be applied. It needs to be applied in thin layers as thicker layers don't set all the way through the layer and have a crust that sets stopping air from curing the layer all the way through. They added certain powders like brick dust to the lacquer to thicken it which opened up the structure of the lacquer allowing it to set all the way through.

It is very rare to find cinnabar lacquer items with a hundred layers or more let alone the up to 500 layers sometimes quoted as being standard. If you think of Chinese Tixi lacquer (Guri lacquer in Japan) the layers of alternating colours can be quite thick.

I will try and get some macro pictures of the layers if I have time.

Regards, Adrian.