Black Lacquered Papier-mâché and Turned Wooden Furniture: Unravelling the Art History, Technology and Chemistry of the 19th-Century Japanning Industry

Abstract

A set of 19th-century furniture in black lacquer, on papier-mâché or on turned wood, has been subjected to an in-depth observational, historical and chemical study. The results show four different technological approaches: two for the papier-mâché objects and two for the wooden chairs. The cyclic labour-intensive lacquering procedure of repeated stoving and polishing lacquer on papier-mâché with mother-of-pearl inclusions is reflected in the crosssections. Pinaceae resin and heated oil are frequently found, conform with surviving recipes. A variant of 'the old form of varnish', as historically described, was likely used. In the two pairs of wooden chairs, the lacquer layers are thinner than on the papier-mâché items. They contain copal and show different stratigraphies. These observations can be the starting point to relate technological and chemical variations to different origins. New art historical findings on lacquer production and trade in England, France and Belgium, and the study of contemporary recipes, frame the analytical results in a historical context.

Nontargeted Pattern Recognition in the Search for Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry Resin Markers in Historic Lacquered Objects

“…The additional presence of minimal quantities of two of the top five SAM markers (2 and 5) opens up south American copal as a possible ingredient. 44 ■ CONCLUSION…”

“…In the black lacquer of a 19th century chair of probably French origin (Museum of Art and History Brussels, inv M76a), the detection of polyozic acid pyrolysates, and two of the top five “CONSAM” markers (1 and 2) indicates an enantio copal. The additional presence of minimal quantities of two of the top five SAM markers (2 and 5) opens up south American copal as a possible ingredient …”

The search for organic compounds with TMAH thermochemolysis: From Earth analyses to space exploration experiments

“…TMAH-Py-GC/MS is a practical method for the characterization of ancient art works, especially the composition of lacquer, such as the black lacquers of 19th-century furniture [218], European lacquer [199], wooden chips [219], varnish [206,220,221], the paints of antiques, historical coatings on objects of art [222] and the organic matters of archaeological scenarios [79,223,224]. Lists of markers generated in this process could be added into a database to improve the interpretation of complex mixtures in lacquers and combined with other complementary techniques for the compositional analysis of coatings, lacquers, pigments and binders in different antique and ancient architecture.…”

Radiocarbon Dating of Asian Lacquers: Molecular Characterization and Assessment of a Pretreatment Method Prior to Accelerator Mass Spectrometry

“…Imitations of Asian lacquers using other natural polymers were widespread during the 17th century (McSharry et al 2007;Heginbotham and Schilling 2011;Le Hô et al 2012;Andersson and Cattersel 2017;Decq et al 2019). To confirm the composition of the dated lacquer samples used for this study, thermal hydrolysis and methylation-pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (THM-Py-GC-MS) and micro-Raman spectroscopy were employed.…”