Peacock tea service
Fifteen pieces, a peacock on every one, and more gold than anything else we have.
$117
Lacquer chest
$760
The largest thing that will fit on the lathe, and then some.
Materials & dimensions
- Kaduru wood
- Natural lac in black, red and yellow
- Hand-cut brass straps
- Lift-out tray
54 × 34 × 34 cm · 2.8 kg
Care
Dry cloth only. Keep out of direct sun and away from any heat source — lac softens and will take a mark from a warm object left on the lid. The brass will darken; leave it, or bring it back with a cloth and a little lemon.
Shipping & duties
Free standard shipping
Express $75.60
North America · 2.8 kg · includes $6 for fragile packing
Import duties and taxes are set by United States, not by us. They are not included above, and your carrier collects them on delivery.
The story
Most of the chest cannot be turned. The lathe gives Sunil the domed lid and the banding, and everything else — the four sides, the base, the tray — is flat work, lacquered panel by panel by hand with the resin softened over a spirit lamp instead of by friction.
That is slower and considerably harder. A panel laid by hand takes several passes to reach an even depth of colour, and each pass has to go on while the one underneath is still warm enough to accept it. He does one panel a day and no more, because the light goes and the resin behaves differently in the evening.
Brass corner straps, hand-cut and pinned. A lift-out tray in bare kaduru. Six weeks in total, and an edition of fifteen because he has said plainly that he will not do a sixteenth.
Sunil Wijesuriya
Matale, Central Province · working since 1994
