Mother-of-pearl lacquerware is a lesser known craft that uses one of many lacquer decorative techniques, which involves placing sheets of abalone shells on top of wares coated with lacquer. Korea’s mother-of-pearl lacquer has a history spanning a th...
Mother-of-pearl lacquerware is a lesser known craft that uses one of many lacquer decorative techniques, which involves placing sheets of abalone shells on top of wares coated with lacquer. Korea’s mother-of-pearl lacquer has a history spanning a thousand years, beginning from the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392), and is recognized internationally to be representative of craftwork. Influenced by Buddhist aristocratic culture, Goryeo lacquerware reached the height of its intricacy and refinement. There are about twenty lacquerware dated to the Goryeo dynasty identified today and of these, the majority are Buddhist sutra boxes, prayer bead cases, and other Buddhist objects.
Due to the lack of existing Goryeo lacquerware artifacts and historic records, so far dating the objects has relied on scientific research of the techniques and materials used. There are currently nine known Goryeo mother-of-pearl lacquer sutra boxes in the world that researchers, although with small differences, generally agree with production chronology through categorization of decorative technique and materials. This paper focuses on the reproduction of the “Mother-of-Pearl Lacquer Sutra Box with Peony and Scroll Design” in the collection of the Kitamura Museum, classified as late Goryeo with elaborate designs and techniques, in order to illuminate the production techniques of Goryeo mother-of-pearl lacquer sutra boxes.
Existent Goryeo mother-of-pearl lacquerware generally follow these steps: a coat of lacquer on its wooden surface, a layer of cloth is added, followed by a mixture of bone powder and lacquer called golhoe (骨灰), then mother-of-pearl and other decorations are added. If we look more carefully at the process, firstly the shortly-cut metallic lines create vines and eggplants, and the two twisted lines are used to define boundaries and outline the objects. Next is the mother-of-pearl technique that showcase the elaborateness of these objects. Thousands of tiny mother-of-pearl shards are created using the jureum-jil or cut-out technique and placed on the surface of the lacquer, while creating complicated shapes such as hemp leaf patterns and tortoiseshell patterns by using the kkeun’eum-jil or thin-slicing technique that was groundbreaking at the time and can be said to have influenced development in design.
Through these research materials, the reproduction of the Kitamura Museum’s “Mother-of-Pearl Lacquer Sutra Box with Peony and Scroll Design” was part of a solo exhibition at the Gyeongin Museum from January 13 through 19, 2016. It is my hope that the findings of this research through the reproduction of Goryeo dynasty mother-of-pearl lacquer sutra boxes using traditional techniques will be transmitted as part of the research to preserve this traditional craft.