Fuzhou Tuotaiqiqi Lacquer Decoration Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
For its excellent craftsmanship, great variety of types, ingenious shapes, and brilliant colors, since 1898 Fuzhou bodiless lacquerware has successively won prizes at the world expositions held in Paris, Toronto, Berlin, London, and Philadelphia in the United States. After 1949, the Shen family's Lanji lacquer shop was reorganized into a bodiless lacquerware company; the famous lacquer artists Li Zhiqiang and Gao Xiuquan both achieved new breakthroughs in design and the art of lacquer decoration, and their works won first prize in the national lacquerware shape-and-design competition and were used as the principal decoration for the Fujian Hall and Taiwan Hall of the Great Hall of the People.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Fuzhou bodiless lacquerware lacquer-decoration technique was founded by Shen Shao'an on the basis of inheriting China's lacquer craft of several thousand years. The Shen family's bodiless lacquer art has distinct technical characteristics in bodiless molding and surface lacquering. In production, cloth or wooden bodies are used; after process steps such as applying the base plaster, polishing, lacquer decoration, black burnishing, and color burnishing, the pieces are further decorated with techniques such as colored-lacquer gold blending, brocade patterns, red-lacquer gold line drawing, and taihua mother-of-pearl inlay. In the 31st year of the Guangxu reign (1905), the Qing court bestowed upon Shen Zhenghao, fifth-generation descendant of Shen Shao'an, the honors of 'fourth-grade merchant merit with fifth-rank court hat'; in the second year of the Xuantong reign (1910), Shen Zhenghao and Shen Zhengxun were further promoted to 'first-grade merchant merit with fourth-rank court hat.'
Archival Records of Process Steps
The Shen family's bodiless lacquer art has distinct technical characteristics in bodiless molding and surface lacquering. In production, cloth or wooden bodies are used; after process steps such as applying the base plaster, polishing, lacquer decoration, black burnishing, and color burnishing, the pieces are further decorated with techniques such as colored-lacquer gold blending, brocade patterns, red-lacquer gold line drawing, and taihua mother-of-pearl inlay.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Fuzhou bodiless lacquerware lacquer-decoration technique is centered on Fuzhou, Fujian, and extends to lacquerware workshops in every county of central Fujian; the technique was founded by Shen Shao'an on the basis of inheriting China's lacquer craft of several thousand years. The Shen family's bodiless lacquer art forms pieces with cloth or wooden bodies, lacquering and glazing them after the body is cast off, so the vessels are light yet do not crack. The Fuzhou Lacquer Art Research Society is the project's protecting unit.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present, under the impact of the market economy, Fuzhou's No. 1 and No. 2 bodiless lacquerware factories have successively closed down, the Fujian Arts and Crafts Research Institute has been dissolved, practitioners have changed trades in large numbers, few of the original artisans remain, and techniques of bodiless lacquer decoration such as 'printed brocade' (yinjin) and 'taihua' inlay have already been lost. The traditional technique of Fuzhou bodiless lacquerware decoration now faces the predicament of the art dying out with the artisans and needs careful protection. Zheng Yikun (recorded in the official archive of associated inheritors): Male, of Han ethnicity, born in 1936 in Fuzhou, Fujian. Representative inheritor of the Fuzhou bodiless lacquerware lacquer-decoration technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item (first batch); Master of Chinese Arts and Crafts. In 1956, Zheng Yikun entered the lacquer art department of the Fuzhou Arts and Crafts School and studied the basic techniques of lacquer craft systematically under the master Li Zhiqiang; he also received careful guidance from the lacquer artist Gao Xiuquan, the noted flower-and-bird painter Chen Zifen, and the calligrapher Pan Zhulan. In the 1960s, Zheng Yikun pioneered the Fuzhou-style 'lacquer painting of goldfish'. In the 1980s, at the Fuzhou Arts and Crafts Research Institute, he organized research personnel to study and develop lacquer-art products such as 'decorative lacquer film' and 'lacquerware pattern transfer,' creatively advancing a series of techniques including transparent sealing, vari-colored coating, and polish-reveal, enriching the vocabulary of lacquer art and strengthening its expressive power. Creating lacquer-art works characterized by raw-lacquer polishing, with layered ambiguity, shifting texture, and profound artistic conception, was Zheng Yikun's lifelong pursuit. His representative works include Goldfish, Butterflies Dancing in the Spring Sunshine, Heart's Desire, Night Patrol, and Fragrance of Chrysanthemum. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Chinese Arts and Crafts. Huang Shizhong (recorded in the official archive of associated inheritors): Male, of Han ethnicity, born in November 1942 in Fuzhou, Fujian Province. Representative inheritor of the Fuzhou bodiless lacquerware lacquer-decoration technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item (fourth batch). A technician of Fuzhou bodiless lacquerware lacquer decoration. The lacquerware he makes forms its shapes entirely of traditional top-quality raw lacquer and summer cloth (ramie cloth); its undercoating, top coating, and black lacquer all present a blackness through which the base can be seen, flashing a metallic light, while the polished vermilion lacquer is vivid without being harsh, moist and delicately lustrous, so that classical lacquer art and modern flavor blend and set each other off. Many of his works have been published in the lacquer volume of the Complete Collection of Chinese Art and in Fujian Lacquer Art. After establishing his studio, he combined bodiless lacquerware production with the transmission of skills to apprentices; all of his students have become senior technicians, among whom Chen Tian has become a senior arts-and-crafts designer of Fujian Province.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zheng Yikun 01-0170
- Huang Shizhong 04-1851
- Zheng Xiuqian 05-2759
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。