In the social life of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China, people used a wide range of transparent paint enamel furniture, which not only beautified the furniture, but also delayed the weathering process of the wood. For a long time, due to the one-sided understanding of the environmental protection concept of foreign furniture, the antiques industry generally peels and smears the old furniture in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the name and composition of their surface coatings are rarely discussed, resulting in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. There are many misunderstandings in the research and protection of furniture, which need to be clarified and corrected.
Transparent furniture coatings in the Ming and Qing Dynasties are roughly divided into three types: wide paint, cage paint and wide oil. The following describes their composition and identification methods.
First, wide paint
Wide-paint is one of the most widely used coatings on softwood furniture (and some hardwood furniture) during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, hence the name. According to the "Instructions for the Works of the Ministry of Industry" compiled by He Shijin in the Ming Dynasty, the paints of the Ming Palace (including purchase) mainly include: raw lacquer, paint, lacquer, gold lacquer and tung oil. The lacquer is 5 cents per jin, which is lower than the raw lacquer (6. 5 per cent) and higher than the tung oil (3 per cent). It is actually a natural raw lacquer (the quality should be better, if the water content is too high, it should be removed as appropriate) and cooked tung oil (the best for the purple slab oil, it is the raw tung oil soaked with the residual slag after the raw smashed A mixture of tanning, good gloss, purplish red or light golden red, fast drying, the color varies from purple to purple, depending on the amount of paint, and is translucent (Fig. 1). The wide lacquer is usually painted directly on the wooden tires of the furniture. It is mostly two-way, and there are also one enamel. After the hoe, the lacquer is generally not polished. Some of the more sophisticated ones are decorated with lacquer or gold foil. When applying lacquer, the requirements for operating technology and shadow chamber conditions are slightly lower, and are generally done in wood workshops (Fig. 2). The wide lacquer that the Ming Palace called for should be mainly used for furniture used by eunuchs and palace ladies in the palace.
How can we distinguish between lacquered furniture and lacquered furniture? Large lacquered furniture refers to the structure of wood as the fetal bone structure, which is covered with ash or cloth, paper and other ash powder, and then lacquered furniture, also known as lacquer. Furniture. The wide-painted furniture belongs to single-painted furniture. The wooden tires are neither ash or primer, and some are dyed with a purple water color (an ancient multi-purpose soaked wood). Basically consistent, so it is purple-red to see through the wood grain (some years of weathering can be rubbed and rubbed and then observed). For example: the late Ming Dynasty woodcarving unicorn pattern (Figure 3), 62 cm high, 58 cm long, 27 cm wide. The data is marked as “red lacquerâ€, but in fact, the wooden tire is dyed in purple and red, and then painted with lacquer. In the late Ming Dynasty, the four-headed official hat chair (Fig. 4) was 105 cm high, 58.5 cm long and 44.5 cm wide. The data is marked as “large paintâ€, but the color of the paint layer is single. From the peeling point, it can be seen that the wooden tire has been dyed with purple water color, indicating that the original flaw is a transparent wide paint, but now the paint color becomes cloudy due to weathering.
Second, the cover paint
The lacquer lacquer, also known as lacquer lacquer, gold lacquer, commonly known as "clear water lacquer", was once misinterpreted as "Dragon Claw Paint" by scholars in the translation of the Manchu archives of Qing Palace. It is a widely used paint in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Large lacquered furniture that can be used to cover enamel gold is often used to directly decorate white wood furniture and light-colored hardwood furniture. The lacquer lacquer is made of high-quality light-colored lacquer and then blended into cooked tung oil. It is added with garcinia, which is golden-red transparent (Fig. 5). The bidding price of the Ming court workshop is four cents per catty. More expensive than ordinary paint, more expensive than wide paint and tung oil. After the enamel paint is applied, the utensils must be placed in a sealed shadow chamber at a temperature of 22 to 28 ° C and a humidity of more than 80%.
It should be pointed out that because the term "golden paint" has been misunderstood for a long time, the relevant conclusions of the study of furniture history in the Ming and Qing Dynasties have deviated, and we should correct it realistically today. For example, Fan Xi, a literary scholar of the Ming Dynasty, mentioned in his book "The Clouds of the Ginkgo Gold Painted Square Table" when he was a teenager; Wen Zhenheng said in "The Long Story" that the gold paint folding chair is "unusual" use". The furniture in the text is now often referred to as the lacquered furniture of gold or gold enamel, and accordingly the lacquered furniture is placed in the middle of the Ming Dynasty in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. However, this is because of the misunderstanding caused by the different expressions of ancient and modern concepts. Fan and Wen said that “golden paint†refers to the cover paint, and those “golden paint†furniture are white wood furniture with a single coat of paint. Ginkgo biloba is finely structured, soft wood, pale yellow, and large. The furniture made of ginkgo wood can be used to produce a slightly enamel-like effect (Fig. 6). It has been the Ming Dynasty before the popular hardwood furniture such as eucalyptus, rosewood, and wenge wood. The folk furniture is more expensive than the general white wood furniture decorated with wide lacquer and wide oil enamel, and it is also a higher grade in the white wood furniture decorated with lacquer enamel. The economy of Suzhou and Songjiang is developed, and the furniture of ordinary folks is also more elaborate than other areas. We can't confuse this kind of gold lacquer furniture, which was named after the paint in ancient times, with the gold lacquer inlay process, which is collectively referred to in the public-private partnership industry in the 1950s, because the gilded enamel and gold-painted lacquer furniture are of high grade and valuable, not The ordinary people of the Ming Dynasty can own it, and the lacquer furniture is not named after the timber of the bottom tire.
The furniture of the whole body cover is completely exclusive to the royal family in the Ming and Qing dynasties. In those days, it was generally named after the "golden", such as the Golden Dragon Throne, the Golden Chair (Figure 7), and so on. In addition to those rebellious green forest heroes, it is illegal to make and use them. When the royal family sells furniture and utensils that are covered with gold enamel, it is necessary to remove the gold foil to avoid overcrowding. This is the highest taboo in the feudal period, and it is stricter than the banned lacquer furniture. I have not seen any folk furniture that has been covered with gold in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. When the ministers of the Qing Dynasty military aircraft office were working in the Forbidden City, they also sat in a single-painted chair (Fig. 8). Due to the high proportion of the lacquer-containing lacquer, the aging resistance is not as good as the standard lacquer, and the furniture hull of the high-grade single enamel lacquer is especially canggu (Fig. 9).
The lacquer can also be calendered to make the lacquer surface smoother and smoother. During the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the popular eucalyptus furniture in the north was dyed with wood underneath, then covered with lacquer, and then polished with lacquer and lacquer, the surface effect was similar to mahogany furniture.
Third, wide oil
Guangyou, also known as varnish, is also an important coating in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The main ingredient is tung oil. Tung oil is a natural oil extracted from the seeds of the deciduous small tree arborvitae (also known as tung tree) of the genus Euphorbiaceae. It is a tung oil that has not been refined, and the drying is slow and the coating is relatively soft. Cooked tung oil, according to the use of multiple varieties, often used in conjunction with large paint, has become the source of the word "paint" in Chinese. Guangyou is a kind of glaze and painting oil made by adding a small amount of rosin powder and soil, Huangdan ,, which has higher brightness and hardness and faster drying. The wide oil does not have to enter the shadow room after the sputum, but pay attention to dust.
When handling the wide oil, pay attention to safety. The drier used must be baked beforehand; when the oil temperature rises to 130 °C, use a simmer to make the water in the oil dissipate with the air bubbles, then use the fire and add the soil. When the oil temperature rises to 230 ° C, add the yellow dan, rosin powder and stir and test the oil sample; the oil is dripped on the metal plate and then rubbed with a finger to pull up the sticky wire of more than two centimeters. The old level can be determined according to the needs), and the smoke is continuously raised with a spoon until the oil temperature is lowered.
The high transparency of the wide oil can best display the color and texture of the furniture wood, so it was not only used for white wood furniture in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but also used in light-colored hardwood furniture. The aging resistance of the wide oil is not as good as that of the wide paint and the lacquer. After a long time, weathering and even degradation will occur, the surface will be gray and white, and the transparency will be reduced.
Whether it is wide lacquer, lacquer lacquer, or wide oil, it is an excellent coating of natural environmental protection, which is inconsistent with the chemical coatings introduced by modern and modern. These transparent coatings on Ming and Qing furniture not only beautify and protect the furniture wood, but also the degree of weathering is an important reference for the identification of furniture. Wax paint (shellac) waxing is a surface treatment method for furniture imported from Europe in modern times. Although it is environmentally friendly, it can retain the unique light, feel and breath of the logs, but it is easy to produce impressions when the furniture surface is heated. The paint piece is more aging, the wax liquid is also easy to volatilize, and it is necessary to maintain the furniture regularly, which is not only troublesome, but also difficult to form a "shell" with the characteristics of traditional Chinese furniture. The author believes that such excellent traditional Chinese furniture coatings as lacquer, shroud and wide oil will be re-recognized and loved by modern people.
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