Lacquer with inlay

Object Details

• Label

  Lacquer dishes with simple, elegant designs inlaid in mother-of-pearl are often difficult to date precisely. This dish was probably made in the fourteenth century, though the thirteenth century is another possibility. The visual power of the imagery depends, in part, on the iridescence and variety of colors of the mother-of-pearl. The design was probably based on an illustration published in a popular mid-thirteenth-century, woodblock-printed book with drawings of the life cycle of the plum tree.

  The sawtooth design on the dish's sidewalls is unusual because the inlay appears near lines incised into the lacquer, which were once filled with gold. Usually these two techniques were not combined in a single piece.

• Collection

  Arthur M. Sackler Collection

• Exhibition History

  The Arts of China (November 18, 1990 to September 7, 2014)

  Pavilions and Immortal Mountains: Chinese Decorative Art and Paintings (September 28, 1987 to February 28, 1988)

• Origin

  China

• Credit Line

  Gift of Arthur M. Sackler

• Type

  Vessel

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

  There are restrictions for re-using this media. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1200s, 1300s

• Place

  China

• Topic

  Art, Inlay (process), Animals, Chinese Art, Lacquer, Birds, Southern Song dynasty (1127 - 1279), Yuan dynasty (1279 - 1368), Plum blossom

• Culture

  Chinese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)