Urushi, Japanese lacquerware, is perhaps the oldest and most sublime of all the Japanese arts and crafts. Its history goes back more than 7,000 years and it is still vibrantly alive in the twenty-first century. It is practiced by craftsmen working in time-honored techniques and by modern artists forging the future. Valued for its utilitarian durability, Urushi developed into an incomparable art, adorning a objects from luxurious palaces, to lavish murals, to exquisitely crafted fountain pens. This book includes some fifty full-color illustrations of masterpieces honored by history and works by the author himself.--adapted from publisher's description.

Production, Distribution and Appreciation: New Aspects of East Asian Lacquer Ware, edited by Patricia Frick and Annette Kieser, focuses on various aspects of East Asian lacquer art ranging from the 2nd century BC to the 17th century. Recent excavations in China, the distribution of lacquer objects throughout the Eurasian region, the significance of lacquer ware in everyday life, technical aspects of lacquer production in Korea, and the appreciation of Japanese lacquer in Asia and Europe are analysed in six chapters by international experts in the field: Patricia Frick; Annette Kieser; Nanhee Lee; Yan Liu; Margarete Prüch and Anton Schweizer. Production, Distribution and Appreciation: New Aspects of East Asian Lacquer Ware is published in association with the European Association for Asian Art and Archaeology.

Lacquerware Journeys focuses on unpublished tribal and regional lacquerware from previously inaccessible or remote areas of Burma. The author and photography team spent five years between 2005 - 2010 researching and travelling to visit peoples such as the Gadu-Ganan in Sagaing division, in order to find the most beautiful and rare lacquerware. Betel boxes and miniature wooden soon-okes (meal carriers) in plain black or red colour are found within an area as large as five thousand square miles east to west between Banmauk and Homalin. Other shapes are almost impossible to find, except for a few pieces transported from other regions in the last century or in recent decades. In addition, new research from Lower Burma focuses on and provides detailed information on the lacquerware masters of this region and their workshops. The lacquerware of Rakhine state on the west coast of Burma, its masters, their names and localities of their production are also published for the first time. SELLING POINTS: Lacquerware Journeys includes rare examples of lacquerware never before documented which are complemented by beautiful illustrations This book is indispensible for the collector as well as beautiful introduction for those new to lacquerware It includes the first ever publishing of local masters and names' and locality of production 280 colour illustrations

Dating back several thousand years, the art of lacquer is one of the most ancient expressions of Asian culture, and this publication provides an overview of the different kinds of methods and materials used in Cambodia, China, India, Korea, Japan, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The number of people employed in this ancestral art has fallen dramatically throughout Asia in recent decades, and this book considers the challenges to its survival as well as highlighting the importance of documenting past and modern procedures.

A highly illustrated study into the art, craft and techniques of Burmese lacquerware from ancient times to the present. Beginning with the origins, the book covers process, technique, decoration, design, motifs, usage (secular, religious and ceremonial), craft centres in Burma and collections.

Presents a wide range of exceptional Chinese lacquerware representing a broad time span and multiple techniques. The lacquers range in date from the later Han dynasty (1st-2nd century CE) to the late Ming dynasty (1368-1644). The collection is also rich in uniquely Yuan dynasty lacquerware, which is noted for its austere and refined appearance.