Lacquerware Botanical Bowls

A pair of lovely lacquerware bowls, decorated with classic botanical motifs (Japanese maple and bamboo). Likely pre-war (Showa period). Five inches in diameter.

Lacquer is derived from the sap of the lacquer- and wax trees (genus Toxicodendron), native to China, Korea and Japan. Their sap contains the compound urushiol (from the plant’s Japanese name, urushi) — the same compound found in poison oak and poison ivy in North America. The complex technique of coating wooden (and other) objects with lacquer developed in Japan and China as early as 8000 years ago. Lacquerware is extremely durable, and impervious to most liquids. Un-pigmented, it is a dark brown, but most lacquerware is colored black or red with iron pigments.