Important Notice

Designed as a reversible, irregular rectangular pendant of layered lacquer, with a circular central opening inset with a band of 18 K gold


Lacquer

Lacquer is an organic, resilient, high gloss substance, traditionally made from the sap extracted from lacquer trees, native to East Asia and cultivated around the world. After it has been aged, the sap is refined and processed to form several different types of lacquer or urushi for various applications ranging from the everyday to the artistic. Closely associated with Japanese history and artistic traditions, lacquer has proved to be a versatile and durable material, enhancing objects ranging from furniture to jewelry, as evidenced in the present lot.

The iro-urushi or coloured lacquers used in the traditional Japanese tsuishu and tsuikoku techniques that inspired the design of this pendant are dyed red, black, yellow, green and brown with natural pigments during their processing. These particular techniques, literally meaning 'piled up red' and 'piled up black' in Japanese, involve the application naturally coloured lacquers to an object, usually wooden, by painting them on with a fine brush in several layers, each approximately 1 to 1.5 millimeters thick. A time and skill -intensive process, it takes about three days for each of these layers of lacquer to dry and harden. A single piece of lacquer or urushi ware may thus take several months to create.

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