This paper discusses an ongoing treatment and research project focused on a group of black lacquer furniture created in China during the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries, now in the Winterthur Museum collection in Delaware, USA. Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) allowed for a two-year collaborative project encompassing treatment and analytical study of a selection of six objects, of which three are illustrated here. Data from pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry revealed a hitherto undetected separate urushiol lacquer-layer applied on top of a laccol layer on a center table and a six-panel screen.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.