Lacquerware has appeared as a symbol of wealth, status, and power since ancient times, and was once regarded as fashionable by the ruling class. It not only has high artistic value, but also has high economic value. It can be said to be a good piece of collection. The production of lacquerware is divided into tire making, varnishing, painting (painting repeatedly after drying), polishing, and various painting, carving, inlay and other processes. It can be divided into dozens of types including painting, carving and filling, piling up paint, filling, inlaying mother-of-pearl, rhinoceros skin, picking red, picking rhinoceros, treasure inlay, etc. Judging from the current lacquerware sales market, painted , carved and filled, inlaid with gems and mother-of-pearl, carved red, and carved rhinoceros account for the vast majority. When choosing lacquerware, you can pay attention to several aspects:
1. Look at the lacquer color
The surface of lacquerware is painted with resin secreted from natural lacquer trees. It is not only moisture-proof, anti-corrosion, acid-resistant, and heat-resistant to protect the utensils, but also has a beautiful and soft luster to beautify the utensils. Its natural color is milky white and yellow. Once it is oxidized in the air for a period of time, it will become darker and darker. The term "pitch black" refers to raw lacquer that has only been oxidized. Due to the limitations and strengths of natural lacquer, it has to be combined with pigments such as cinnabar, silver cinnabar, stone yellow, titanium white, phthalocyanine blue, etc. With these lacquers, not only can the base color be painted flat, but also the painting can be painted pattern. The unique plasticity and viscosity of natural lacquer can also be used to paste and inlay the naturally beautiful shells, jade, gold, silver, eggshells, etc. in the lacquerware. The natural translucence and wear resistance make it suitable for over-dying and over-coating with gold and silver foil and powder phase. Therefore, it is very necessary to first observe the color of a piece of lacquerware. All lacquerware products have a warm and moist luster on the outside, which is very subtle and still makes the eyes comfortable after looking at it for a long time. The gloss of chemical paint is very dazzling, while the gloss of injection paint products is very dull or has no gloss. Among vermilion lacquerware, such as red lacquer carving, painting, red picking, rhinoceros picking, the paint color on the surface of the vessel is bright vermilion, because it is mixed with real cinnabar, and the color has a thick and warm feeling. The imitations or counterfeit ones are made by mixing pig blood. The paint color of this type of utensils is dark red and the color is very thin. The lacquered utensils are purplish-red, gray and cold in color. Lacquerware inlaid with jade and mother-of-pearl should not only look at the paint color, but also have a certain understanding of the authenticity of the jade and the quality of the mother-of-pearl. Fake products are all inlaid with plastic or synthetic materials.
2. Smell the smell
The ingredients of lacquer include urushiol, laccase, gum, moisture and other substances, so when it is started to be made, it will be accompanied by lacquer. The inherent smell usually has a strong sour aroma at the beginning of production, which is slightly pungent. After it is made, the sour smell on the product will become lighter and weaker over time, and at the same time there will be an obvious gum smell. Generally, new lacquerware products have a stronger smell, while older ones will have a lighter or even no smell. This is also a commonly used method for identifying the age of lacquerware. Lacquerware made of injection paint and chemical paint sold on the market will have a strong plastic smell inside and outside, similar to the rubber smell of car tires, which is very different from the mild sour gum smell emitted by natural paint.
3. Weigh the weight
The body materials of lacquerware are relatively diverse, including wood body, bamboo body, leather body, pottery body, bodiless body and metal body, etc. Wooden bodies and bodiless lacquer ware are common in the Beijing area. The bodiless lacquer ware is made up of layers of hemp and cloth and the viscosity of lacquer. When purchasing lacquer ware, you can weigh the object with your hands. Wooden ware has a heavy feel and a certain weight. The bodiless utensils are very light, and large utensils can be easily picked up with one hand. However, imitation lacquerware generally does not have a carcass and is divided into lacquer surfaces (it is not painted on the carcass, it is molded by a machine at one time). It is much lighter than the wooden carcass, but is much heavier than the lacquered carcass.
4. Knocking sound
Due to the complicated process and every step of lacquerware production, a formed lacquerware handicraft is very dense and can be seen from the inside out. The design is very careful. In addition to feeling the weight, you can also tap different positions on the surface of the object to listen to the sound it makes.
Purely handmade natural lacquer products, no matter where the object is struck, the size and feel of the sound are the same. A clanking sound similar to a knock on the door indicates that the entire object is very well-proportioned and dense. Compared with imitations and painted products, the sound produced when struck will be uneven and the wall of the object will feel hollow. The sound is not crisp and light.
In addition to the above methods of choosing lacquerware, you can also learn from the fineness of workmanship, the naturalness of the decoration on the surface, and the source of the product.
As a traditional handicraft, lacquerware has always occupied an important position in traditional Chinese culture. Yuan Mei, a poet of the Qing Dynasty, once summed up the dazzling visual beauty of lacquerware with the words "The flowers are in the shade, the valerian corals are bright, and the clouds are faintly blooming in the east." The oriental art spirit of "Wandering the Heart is Taixuan". Looking at the auction market in recent years, the auction of lacquerware has become increasingly popular, especially lacquerware furniture and cultural and antique lacquer art works. Compared with other works of art such as paintings, collecting contemporary traditional handicrafts is less risky and the prices are relatively affordable. As long as they are purchased through formal channels, they are basically genuine. Moreover, the exquisite craftsmanship and profound historical culture of traditional handicrafts make them have high humanistic and social value, making them high-quality products worth collecting.