Marilyn Fish "Espresso Connoisseurship" Glossary Terms

Thank you to Marilyn Fish for her contribution to our glossary terms. Marilyn comes to the Devenish Group with past experience as Editor in Chief of Style 1900 Magazine and Gallery Manager for Jason Jacques.

Coromandel Lacquerware

Coromandel lacquerware is a type of Chinese lacquerware, so called in the West because it was shipped to European markets via the Coromandel coast of south-east India, where the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and its European rivals had bases from the 17th through the early 19th centuries Folding screens with up to 12 panels were the most common type of object made in the style. Each panel was coated with up to 30 layers of costly black lacquer, a material derived from the Rhus vernicifera tree (now called Toxicodendron vernicifluum, and also commonly known as the varnish tree), and ornamented with pictures using the kuan cai (literally “incised colors”) technique. Sometimes the designs were highlighted with luxurious engraved and tinted mother-of-pearl elements and other valuable inlays. The screens seem to have been mostly made in the Fujian province in south China, traditionally a key area for lacquer manufacturing. At the time of the first imports in the 17th century, Coromandel lacquer was known in English as “Bantam ware” or “Bantamwork,” after the VOC port of Bantam on Java. The first recorded use of the term “Coromandel lacquer” is in a Parisian auction catalogue of 1782.

The kuan cai or “incised colors” technique goes back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE). In this technique the wood base of the object was coated with thick layers of black or other dark lacquer, and then polished to a high sheen. The shapes of the pictorial elements were then cut out and filled with contrasting materials. It is also possible that for the sake of economy (lacquer was expensive), craftsmen reserved space for the pictorial elements which were built up of putty, gesso, plaster, or lacquer before the final surface was painted with colored lacquer, oil paints, or a combination thereof.

Because true Oriental lacquer could not be produced in Europe (the Rhus vernicifera tree was not grown on the continent), European cabinet-makers often cut desirable imported screens into sections, and inserted them into pieces of traditional European furniture. Before the advent of Oriental-style wallpaper, panels were also removed from screens and hung directly on walls.

The primary designs are typically of two major groups: firstly courtly “figures in pavilions,” often showing “spring in the Han palace,” and secondly landscape designs, often with emphasis on birds and animals.  Some screens illustrate specific episodes from literature or history. Typically, secondary images run above and below the primary scene. These often show the “hundred antiques” design of isolated “scholar's objects,” antique Chinese objets d’art, sprays of flowers, or a combination of the two. There are often narrow borders between the main image and secondary images, and at the edges. Sometimes both sides of the screen are fully decorated, usually on contrasting subjects. The earlier examples made for the Chinese market often have inscriptions recording their presentation as gifts on occasions such as birthdays; they came to represent a standard present on the retirement of senior officials.

Unguentaria

An unguentarium (plural “unguentaria”), also referred to as balsamarium (plural “balsamarii”), lacrimarium (plural “lacrimarii”) or tears vessel, is a small ceramic or glass bottle of various shapes found frequently by archaeologists at Hellenistic and Roman sites, especially in cemeteries. Its most common use was as a container for perfumed oil, although it is also suited for storing and dispensing other liquid and powdered substances. From the 2nd to the 6th century CE, they are more often made of blown glass rather than clay. A few examples are of silver or alabaster. According to the Corning Museum of Glass website, the word unguentarium was invented in the19th century, on analogy with unguentarius (Latin: perfume seller).

Unguentaria were mass- produced for use as product packaging. They are distributed throughout the Mediterranean region of the Roman Empire from Israel to Spain and north to Britain and Germania.  Their manufacture was as widespread as their use.

In its early development, the shape was modeled in miniature after larger amphoras. Later, two shapes became most dominant: Fusiform – having a heavy ovoid body set on a ring foot with a long tubular neck; and Piriform – having a pear-shaped, footless body. The former first appear in Cyprus around the turn of the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE; the latter began to appear in the second half of the 1st century BCE and is regularly associated with graves. Piriform unguentaria did not replace Fusiform unguentaria.

Piriform unguentaria