Lacquerware Journeys

'Lacquerware Journeys: The Untold Story of Burmese Lacquer' is a magnificent record of both the famous and lesser-known lacquerware centres of Myanmar. Over a six-year period, the author and photographic team travelled to visit peoples such as the Gadu-Ganan in Sagaing division, or sites in Lower Burma in order to find the most beautiful and meticulous lacquerware. All types of lacquerware, whether plain black and red, elaborately gilded or intricately incised, are discussed and illustrated in over 660 photographs. The diverse and inventive shapes produced by the craftsmen of Myanmar are also recorded, together with makers' marks and other fascinating inscriptions wherever found. In addition, new research from Lower Burma focuses on and provides detailed information about the lacquerware masters of this region and their workshops. Despite popular and scholarly beliefs that lacquerware came exclusively from Upper Burma, recent research shows otherwise. The author has carried out extensive interviews with the descendants of laquerware masters still living in small villages in this region which saw production spanning a period from the 1890s until the Second World War. Furthermore, the unusual meal carriers of Rakhine state on the west coast of Burma, its masters, their names and production sites are published here for the first time. This beautifully-illustrated book goes beyond the established centres of Burmese lacquerware such as Bagan and the Shan State to document the wide diversity of these unique works of art throughout the lesser-travelled and usually inaccessible areas of Myanmar.