20th Century Painted and Lacquered Stools or Side Tables, Set of 2

Elegant pair of Chinese wooden, painted and lacquered stools or tables.
Cabriole -shaped feet are surmounted by a sculpted round base and painted by hand.

The trays are decorated with orange, red and green yellow floral patterns and a small bird sitting on a branch, magnified by the presence of a “Greek Key” pattern on the surrounding upper edge.

The central base is also decorated with yellow and salmon floral patterns.
All magnified by Beijing gold enhanced in wood.

Era: XXth
Circa: 1945-1950
Dimensions: Height: 47cm x Width: 46cm
Diameter: 35.5cm

Insoluble, rot -proof resin, of rare resistance and adhering to many materials (wood, metal, leaves, metal, leather, etc.), lacquer was first used as a simple coating to protect weapons, objects or furniture .

But its many qualities have quickly been exploited in an aesthetic vein and techniques have been developed, always more complex over the centuries.

from dry lacquer to painted lacquer, sculpted or encrusted, a hundred were listed during the Ming period (1368-1644).
Widely used in the decoration of furniture and precious objects from the Song dynasty (960-1279) to that of the Qing (1644-1912), it responded, until the 1980s, to a codified aesthetic and for forms traditional.