Lacquer artists in China, curiously enough, never developed the use of gold lacquer to any thing like the extent or to the high standard of merit attained by the Japanese, though, rarely, specimens can be found of fine quality. For the most part, gold was used as a simple, flat deco ration, especially on a ground of black as in the screens and boxes, frequently of considerable decorative value, made at Canton and other ports in touch with foreign trade and largely exported by European merchants, especially at the beginning of the 19th cen tury. On the other hand, the Chinese used to advantage a wider range of colour than was generally employed in Japan; and bril liant hues of green, red, brown, cream, purple and other tints are found on objects dating from the later years of the Ming period onwards. Screens, too, were often thus decorated most effectively, and sometimes enriched with applied hard stones, shell or porce lain. The most effective form of this typically Far Eastern article of furniture is provided by the so-called Coromandel work, in which the design is first cut out in intaglio and then completed with varied colour or gold. Such screens, which are sometimes of considerable size—as much as 20 ft. in width and 8 ft. in height, and with I 2 leaves—were largely imported into western Europe at the end of the 17th and early years of the i8th century, by East India merchants whose headquarters (French and English) were either on the Coromandel Coast or (Dutch) at Bantam in Java— the latter place also providing a name often used by old writers. These imported screens were remorselessly cut up to make cabi nets and other articles of furniture, in which form their remains are by no means rare at the present day.
One of the most delicate and charming manifestations of the Chinese lacquerer's art is that called by the French, Lac Burgautee, of which the technique has already been described. The effects of colour produced by the use of iri
descent shell, sometimes engraved, and occasionally in combina tion with gold and silver, are exquisite. This work is generally on a small scale, and though temple utensils and other articles of fair size are to be found. as well as miniature table screens and vases, a favourite production took the form of little wine-cups, originally in sets of five and lined with silver. This branch of art dates certainly from the Ming dynasty and has hardly yet received the attention that its qualities merit.
Chinese ornament as applied to lacquer-ware (as to other of the industrial arts) is almost entirely symbolical and the subject-pieces generally derived from legends of the Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian personages. The more usual of the former are the "Eight Buddhist Emblems of Happy Augury," the "Eight Musical Instruments," and the "Eight Precious Things" (Taoist). The "Hundred Antiques" appear on Coromandel screens and other large works. Among figure subjects may be mentioned representations of Shou Lao, a deification of Lao Tze, the founder of the Taoist philosophy, the "Eight Taoist Immortals," the "Sages of the Bamboo Grove" and those of the wine-cup. Children at games are much favoured, and landscapes with pavilions, trees, mountains, lakes and formal gardens. Among animals the mythical dragon—if with five claws, peculiar to the emperor—and phoenix or feng-huang associated with the empress. The long-tailed tortoise, unicorn (Ch'i-lin), lion, crane, bat, butter fly and fish are frequently seen, all being symbolical of long life, good fortune, happiness, etc. The peach, pine, bamboo, peony, lotus, chrysanthemum and prunus are the chief motives selected from the vegetable kingdom. Of abstract pattern the meander or key-pattern and swastika are the chief. The forms of vessels resemble, as a rule, those either of porcelain or bronzes.