Lacquer box

Object Type
This small lacquer box would have been used by its owner for a wide variety of purposes. The box was exhibited at the 1851 Great Exhibition as 'modern' work from Sindh. It was bought by the Museum of Ornamental Art for 11s.

Materials & Making
The small box is made of turned wood covered with coloured lac, a natural resin, that has had a wide range of uses in the arts of the Indian subcontinent It was also widely used as sealing wax. The lac could be mixed with pigments such as white lead, sulphur, red mercury, prussian blue and indigo, though by 1903, when Sir George Watt wrote the catalogue of the exhibition held to mark the Delhi Durbar (Indian Art at Delhi, 1903), these had largely been superseded by aniline dyes. Metallic effects could be produced by mixing the lac with powdered mica, powdered tinfoil or imitation gold leaf, or with an amalgam of mercury, lead and tin. The coloured sticks of lac were pressed against the finished wood item, held in a lathe. As the item revolved on the lathe, the heat generated softened the lac and a thin layer of colour was thus deposited on the wood. In some cases, layers of different colours were built up. When patterns were incised through the top layer, the colours beneath could be revealed, depending on how deeply the pattern was traced.

Historical Associations
The international exhibitions of the second half of the 19th century greatly stimulated traditional craft industries whose origins and history are usually unknown. Sindh became known for its lac-turned wares and, unusually, production has been maintained to the present day.