#EE400-B  $12

THE STORY OF CINNABAR  

Lacquer is a white resinous sap from the lac tree, which is cultivated in Central and South China.  When exposed to the air, it turns black.  

The lac tree is tapped at about the age of 10 years.  Incisions made in the bark and the running sap collected during the months of June-Sept.  It is strained through hempen cloth to remove physical impurities, and after being pounded and stirred in shallow wooden tubs, to give it uniform liquidity, it is slightly heated over a slow fire, stirred to evaporate excess moisture and stored in airtight vessels.

Lacquer is a slightly irritant poison, but workers in the industry become inoculated.  

Cinnabar is often found near where gold is mined.  The red ore contains mercury.  The ore is then pounded into powder.  Heat is used to render the poisonous mercury harmless.

Lacquer and cinnabar are mixed together to form the manmade lacquer.  The making of cinnabar requires 150 steps.

In the case of carved lacquer, the process was very laborious.  There were sometimes as many as 200-300 coats of lacquer built up on the wooden or metal base, if the piece was to be of first quality, so as to give depth to the carving.  Each layer had to be left to dry, and a fine large piece might take years to prepare and then years to carve.  Ten years was not considered excessive.  

Sometimes layers of different colors were used, and then the carver had to cut back from the surface to expose each color required by the design.  This was done with a V-shaped knife.

The work necessitated the utmost precision.  A slip of a twentieth of an inch, and the work of years would be ruined, for no correction was possible.  

Enjoy the skill it took to make the cinnabar you see or the pieces you purchase - they are truly works of art!

*Just another tidbit I learned from an East Indian family that visited our shop - cinnabar is the pigment used for the red dot the Hindu followers put between their eyebrows, and East Indian women also put the pigment down the center part of their hair.  Enemies have been known to substitute the unfiltered poisonous pure cinnabar ore pigment for the safe pigment in order to murder someone!  A sinister use of a beautiful thing.

Above is what can be done with cinnabar - photo donated by our good friend Gretchen.  Not for sale.  

#EE-403-C  $8

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4 mm faceted  $8

#EE471  $10

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4 & 8 mm faceted  $8  SOLD

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Glenn & Heidi Reed

P. O. Box 50597, Myrtle Beach, SC  29579, U.S.A.

Phone: 843-347-8724 

Email: whatnext@sccoast.net

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