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I was recently given this small 8 cm wide box and cover which I presume is lacquer.
It is very light in weight and although the general appearance of the box is black, closer examination shows it to be composed of seven or eight alternating black and red layers, the last being black.
I was wondering how old this little box might be and I recall in a recent posting on lacquer someone made a reference to a cleaning method given by the late Lloyd Smith for which I would be grateful.
Many thanks
Phillip Adams

Hello Phillip.

You have a Chinese guri (guri is the commonly used Japanese name, the Chinese name is tixi) carved lacquer piece. Probably mid to late 19th C. We have emailed you cleaning instructions. Nice little piece!

Moyra & Doug

Hi Phillip,


When I caught sight of this, my heart leapt up, because it's just so pretty. A little too good to be true, I'm afraid. It's a beautifully made box in the style of early Ming tixi lacquer - in which there are layers of red between the black, giving a lovely blurred softness to the deeply carved design. If this box were really that old it would show many more signs of its age, with tiny crackles all over its surface and longer cracks across the base. The edges of the carving are too sharp, but it's still a fine present and it has some age - possibly a hundred years or so.

Best,

Will

Here is an almost identical box which I posted in April. Doug and Moyra gave me some information then, but I failed to record it.

Does this also fall into that mid to late 19th C dating?

And I would appreciate copy of your cleaning instructions.

Mike,

Your box is at the link below.

Stan

URL Title :Your Box

Hi Mike,

I would go along with Doug and Moyra's previous estimate of the age of your box - less than fifty years. If you compare it to Phillip's, the carving is a bit more crude and formulaic and there are almost no tell-tale signs of age. There was a revival of lacquer work in China in the 1950s (as there was in most of the arts) and some extremely fine pieces were produced. This is more run of the mill and the pattern seems rather lifeless to my eyes, but it's still a nice piece, and is sure to increase in value because of the huge amount of work involved in tixi production.

Cheers,

Will

Mike -

You know, on looking at your piece again, we are really not 100% sure about its age. It is remarably similar to Philips piece, with the only significant difference being that Philips piece has predominant thick black lacquer layers, whereas your has uniformly alternate red and black layers. In other respects they are quite similar indeed. These guri pieces are really hard to date, because they all look the same. They don't have any diapers or design motifs that can be used in dating them, and many Ming pieces look quite similar to 20th C pieces.

What we look for in Guri lacquer is 1) signs of age (scratches, chips, base wear, age cracks in the lacquer or core) 2) construction quality (are the alternate layers of color uniformly applied, are there predominant red or black layers) 3) groove shape (Ming guri lacquer was smoothly carved in a U shaped grove, late Qing or 20th C was carved in a V grove) and 4) carving quality (are the designs smoothly carved, symmetical and of consistent depth and width). First impression on looking at Philip's piece was that it seemed a little more subtle in lacquer color than yours (therefore possibly making it a little older), but quite frankly we are scratching our heads now wondering if the subtle difference in laquer layering is really that significant. There is really so little difference between the two pieces from a design and carving quality viewpoint, we are now inclined to discount the layering difference (which could in fact only be an artifact of the camera or photo angles) and attribute both of these to the same timeframe.

What is that timeframe? That is the $64,000 question. We collect carved laquer and have a number of pieces, but not much guri. There really is not much of it around. We have a late 19th C guri lacquer over copper piece that has a copper footrim of the type that matches some known late 19th C conventional carved lacquer vases. It is lacquered on the base, not counter-enamelled in blue. It has predominantly black lacquer (actually a very,very dark brown)with thin red layers. It was this pattern that we thought we recognized and used to date Philips piece. The use of high contrast polychrome red/black became much more pronounced in the 20th C, so we were looking at that with relation to yours. But in hindsight, now having two very similar pieces to compare, we wish to revise our earlier guess on your piece and date it older - 19th C. And we are just guessing here, as there is no significant scholarship on late Qing / Republic export lacquer.

We now tend to believe that if piece is mid 20th C, it is more likely than not to be on a metal core with a blue counter-enameled base.

We still have a lot to learn about carved lacquer, and our education never stops. Even the experts make mistakes. We have an identical Japanese Kamakura Bori suzuribako that was improperly identified by Derrek Clifford in his book "Chinese Carved Lacquer" as an early 19th Chinese piece.

Best regards

Moyra & Doug

This post is quite a bit old, but I'm hoping to hear some response since it is quite a good discussion on the subject of guri lacquer.

I have a guri lacquer cache pot (planter) measuring 9" (23.4 cm) tall and measuring 11" (28.6 cm) wide at the mouth.

I have no idea how old it is and would like your opinion.

It appears to be constructed with a wood core (at least when I tap on the side it sounds like wood), but the bottom is black enameled metal (probably the same metal that is showing on the foot and inner/outer mouth. The interior is black lacquer.

The base shows wear on the foot only, not the bottom lacquer, because the bottom is slightly concave. There are only a few very minor chips on the exterior sides and the inside shows signs of use as a planter.

I compared my piece to the photos posted by Phillip and Mike - Phillip's box shows 8-9 levels of black and red. Mike's box shows 6-7 levels.

My planter has 13 levels of red and black. Furthermore, you can see from the close up photo that each color level is composed of 4-5 layers of lacquer, so 53-65 layers from my calculations.

Mike and Phillip did not post a close enough photos for me to determine how many layers of lacquer per color level, but assuming it is similar to mine, both have far fewer layers than my planter.

I also notice that both Mike's and Phillip's box have ruyi cloud forms surrounding an OCTAGONAL shape with a hollowed center. The photo you posted of a 19th c. box shows the ruyi surrounding a ROUND shape, hollowed, but with a round peg center (like a donut with a peg in the center).

My planter also has the round 'donut' shape and I found that Christies sold a box that has the same round shape and attributed it to the 19th c. http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/a-guri-lacquer-square-box-and-2076184-details.aspx?intObjectID=2076184

The octagonal shape seems to be a modern interpretation - what do you think?

Hope to hear from you. Thanks!

As far as i can see both these pieces are 1980's replica,In this period there was a revival of interest in lacquer and japanese art. The 1900's replica there is paper mache material on top of the wood core and as a result such pieces have a lot of cracks and splits due to shrinkage and the lacquer tends to peel of the paper mache resulting in lost. In the Ming and Yuan pieces the layering is alot thinner than the latter replicas and many layers, up to hundreds are used to produce the thickness suitable for carving. Such pieces have cracks but not as numerous and they do not peel because it is stuck hard to the wooden core and usually in better condition than 1900s replicas. when buying lacquer, bronze or porcelain one has to be aware of replicas, especially 1900s replica as they can appear old,but is not of the period one is expecting.

Thank you Doug, Moyra, Will, Stan, Mikeoz and Larry.
It is always interesting to see the range of opinions on pieces od Asian Art notwithstanding the inability to actually handle the piece.
Phillip

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