Material: Wood, lacquer
Style: Burma
Size: Height 47 cm, Diameter 30 cm
Order Number: MHSABC1

Cooking oil was stored in large, square, heavily lacquered woven containers called hsi-o. It has a square base for sturdiness and small lugs through which string may be threaded so that it can be carried on a pole. It has a detachable lid.

It seems that the art of making lacquer came to Burma from China as China had been making it for 3,000 years, but it may not have been directly.

Bagan was and is largest and most important centre for lacquer production in Burma.

Lacquer is made from the sap of the htanaung and neem trees. It is tapped like rubber. The grey, viscous liquid turns glossy black on exposure to the air. Objects, which are covered in lacquer, are usually of wood or bamboo, which can be made extremely flexible by interweaving horsehair.

It can also be used as a coating on cane, palm leaf, metal and leather. It forms a hard surface when dry and waterproofs the object and is insect resistant.

Numerous coatings of lacquer are applied. After each application the object is left to dry. The process may take 6 months or longer. A fine piece may have 26 applications. Lacquer furniture can take 2 years to make.

Colour can be applied to it. Traditionally red colouring is used for Burmese lacquer. It is the most distinctive and brilliant and is produced by adding powdered mercuric sulphide, cinnabar, to the lacquer sap.  Ocher and red paint may also be used.  It is added by hand on top of the black lacquer surface. Then dried. Green and yellow are sometimes used, but rarely blue.

In pre-colonial times lacquered boxes stored royal jewels, letters and Buddhist manuscripts. Lacquered trays are still used to give food to the monks.

Ordinary people use lacquer containers for food, clothing, cosmetics and flowers, in preference to the increasingly common metal and plastic.

Map of Bagan.

Mid 20th century.

There is a similar example in Oscar Niemeyer Museum, Curitiba,  Brazil and in Burmese Crafts Past and Present, Sylvia Fraser-Lu, Oxford University Press, 1994, page 228.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

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