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Cinnabar lacquered tray with foliate rim

Photo: Paul Macapia

Cinnabar lacquered tray with foliate rim

15th century

This tray is an example of cinnabar lacquered objects (negoro in Japanese) that were used in Japanese Buddhist temples as daily utensils or ritual implements in the 12th–16th centuries. The sap of the lacquer tree mixed with cinnabar pigment produced the red lacquer. Layers of black lacquer were applied first, and with regular use, the outer red lacquer gradually revealed the black lacquer underneath, creating a patina that was appreciated aesthetically and prized as a mark of time’s passage.
Lacquer, wood
Diameter: 20 1/2 in.
Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, by exchange
81.22
Photo: Paul Macapia
location
Now on view at the Asian Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, A Thousand Cranes: Treasures of Japanese Art, Feb. 5 - July 12, 1987.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Masterpieces of Japanese Art from the Collection of the Seattle Art Museum, Nov. 1, 1998 - Mar. 1, 1999.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, A Thousand Years of Beauty: Japanese Art in Seattle, July 16, 2001 - Nov. 17, 2002.

Tokyo, Japan, Suntory Museum of Art, Luminous Jewels: Masterpieces of Asian Art From the Seattle Art Museum, July 25 - Sept. 6, 2009 (Kobe, Japan, Kobe City Museum, Sept. 19 - Dec. 6, 2009; Kofu, Japan, Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art, Dec. 23, 2009 - Feb. 28, 2010; Atami, Japan, MOA Museum of Art, Mar. 13 - May 9, 2010; Fukuoka, Japan, Fukuoka Art Museum, May 23 - July 19, 2010).

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Luminous: The Art of Asia, Oct. 13, 2011 - Jan. 8, 2012.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Boundless: Stories of Asian Art, Feb. 8, 2020 - ongoing.
Published References"Art of Asia Acquired by North American Museums, 1981," in the Archives of Asian Art, Vol. 35 (1982), p. 83-98, illus no. 44.

Kawai, Masatomo, Yasuhiro Nishioka, Yukiko Sirahara, editors. "Luminous Jewels: Masterpieces of Asian Art From the Seattle Art Museum". The Yomiuri Shimbun, 2009, catalogue number 11

Knight, Michael, "East Asian Lacquers in the Collection of the Seattle Art Museum." Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 1992, no. 14, p. 20

Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, "A Thousand Cranes: Treasures of Japanese Art", co published by Chronicle Books, San Francisco, California, 1987, p. 136, color pl. p. 137

Trubner, Henry. "Asian Art in the Seattle Art Museum: Fifty Years of Collecting." Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 1983, p. 10, illus. color

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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