Qihua 漆花
Qihua is the brand of the Yangzhou Lacquerware Factory, a lacquerware house in Yangzhou, Jiangsu, where lacquer work is recorded from the Warring States period. The factory was established in 1955 as a lacquerware production cooperative. It makes lacquerware in about ten techniques — dotted mother-of-pearl, carved lacquer, carved lacquer with inlaid jade, incised lacquer, and painted work among them — as screens, furniture, and display pieces. It was named a China Time-honored Brand in 2006 and a Jiangsu Time-honored Brand in 2017.
Archive record
China Time-honored Brand Digital Museum, Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM)
- Founded
- 1955
- Origin
- Yangzhou Jiangsu, China
- Category
- 漆器漆艺
- Status
- China Time-honored Brand (2006); Jiangsu Time-honored Brand (2017)
- Designated
- 2017-01-16 Ministry of Commerce
The Archive
The House
Lacquer work at Yangzhou is documented from the Warring States period, and the archive cites two excavations in the 1950s and 1960s as evidence that the city's lacquer trade began more than 2,300 years ago. Under the Han it developed widely; the archive records thousands of lacquer pieces from Han tombs around the city, most of them painted, with gem inlay and flat gold-and-silver decoration already present.
The trade matured through the Tang, when hollow-core dry-lacquer figures, flat gold-and-silver inlay, and mother-of-pearl inlay were all in use and lacquer was counted among Yangzhou's twenty-four kinds of tribute; the hollow-core technique reached Japan with the monk Jianzhen. Carved red lacquer, incised gold, and mother-of-pearl work matured under the Song and Yuan. In the Ming the distinctive Yangzhou repertoire took shape — carved red lacquer, flat-ground mother-of-pearl, soft mother-of-pearl, and the all-stone inlay known as baibao — and by the Qianlong period Yangzhou was one of the country's lacquer centres, with named craftsmen including Jiang Qianli, Wang Guochen, Lu Yingzhi, and Xia Qigong.
In 1955 the city's lacquer craftsmen were regrouped into a production cooperative, the predecessor of the factory. The archive records the enterprise as the only holder of the right to use the "Yangzhou lacquerware" geographical indication, and its own trademark, Qihua, as a well-known trademark in China. The Yangzhou lacquerware technique was inscribed on the first national list of intangible cultural heritage in 2006, and the factory was awarded the title of China Time-honored Brand the same year. In 2018 it was renamed Yangzhou Lacquerware Factory Co., Ltd., and in 2021 it led the formation of a Jiangsu provincial technical committee for traditional craft standardization.
What They Make
The archive gives ten categories: dotted mother-of-pearl (dianluo), carved lacquer, carved lacquer with inlaid jade, flat-ground mother-of-pearl, bone-and-stone inlay, incised lacquer, lacquer inkstones carved from nanmu, painted lacquer, carved-and-filled lacquer, and polished lacquer painting — across some 3,000 designs.
In dotted mother-of-pearl, sheets of luminous shell, pearl shell, and abalone are cut thin as a cicada's wing and laid point by point into a smooth lacquer body; the archive records the technique being lost in the late Qing and recovered in 1978 after more than three years of research. Carved lacquer is built up from many layers of Chinese lacquer and then carved, sometimes combined with inlaid stone and jade. Incised lacquer is worked through six processes — carving, scraping, filling, working, applying, and sprinkling — with colour, gold leaf, and shell filings. Painted lacquer, the oldest technique, mixes pigment into Chinese lacquer; carved-and-filled work outlines each part with a knife and fills the groove with gold powder.
Timeline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1955 | Yangzhou's lacquer craftsmen regroup as a production cooperative, the factory's predecessor |
| 2006 | The Yangzhou lacquerware technique enters the first national intangible cultural heritage list; the factory is awarded the title of China Time-honored Brand |
| 2017 | Designated a Jiangsu Time-honored Brand |
| 2018 | Renamed Yangzhou Lacquerware Factory Co., Ltd. |
| 2021 | Leads the formation of a Jiangsu provincial technical committee for traditional craft standardization |
Passing It On
The archive names several inheritors. Chi Jiajun, born in 1945, is recorded as a national-level craft master; his incised-lacquer screen "Pine and Crane" won a silver cup at the 1986 national lacquerware awards, and his carved-lacquer-and-jade screens were used as state gifts. Lü Yonglin, born in 1948, a provincial craft master, designed a 100-square-metre lacquer mural of Mencius in 2004, described in the archive as the largest in China. Zhang Laixi, born in 1961, is recorded as a provincial craft master in carved red lacquer.
Source: China Time-honored Brand Digital Museum, Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM). Original record: lzhbwg.mofcom.gov.cn. Translated and condensed from the official Chinese archive; no information has been added. Statements of standing are reproduced as recorded by the source.
Sources
Historical facts on this page are compiled from China Time-honored Brand Digital Museum, Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM). Designation recorded 2017-01-16. This page is editorial content; it is not a product listing and nothing here is an offer for sale.
Independence. Time-Honored Goods is an independent multi-brand store. We are not the official site of Qihua, and we do not speak for the house. See Independence & Sourcing.