Dry Lacquer

About & sources.

关于本站与资料来源

This is a reference site about Chinese dry-lacquer sculpture. Every statement on it is meant to be traceable to one of the records below.

What this site is.

A short, cited introduction to the technique: how these sculptures are built, what survives, and how the craft is practised today. It is written for readers meeting the subject for the first time, and it keeps to what the published record supports.

一份带来源的简要介绍:造像如何构成、有哪些存世实物、这门技艺今天如何实践。只写现有出版记录支持的内容。

Sources last checked 7 October 2026.

What it is not.

It holds no objects and speaks for no museum, temple or workshop. The structural diagrams are schematic drawings, not photographs, and are not to scale; follow each museum record to see the work itself.

本站不收藏作品,也不代表任何博物馆、寺院或工坊。结构图为示意图,非作品照片,亦非实际比例;作品请见各馆藏记录。

A note on terms.

Dry lacquer, jiazhu, kanshitsu

English-language scholarship calls the technique dry lacquer. The Chinese term isjiazhu (夹纻) and the Japanese term is kanshitsu (乾漆). These are not exact equivalents, and the Chinese name has changed meaning over time, so this site uses the English term for the technique and names the others where they belong.

英文学术写作称这一技法为 dry lacquer,中文作“夹纻”,日文作“乾漆”。三者并非精确对应,中文名称在历史上含义亦有变化。

Hemp and ramie

The technical study of four early Chinese sculptures identified hemp. The official Tiantai record specifies ramie. These are different fibres, and this site reports each where its own source applies rather than merging them.

早期四件中国造像的技术研究识别出大麻纤维,天台官方档案记载苎麻。两者是不同纤维,本站按各自来源分别表述,不作合并。

Dry lacquer also covers sculpture that keeps a wooden core, so the term should not be read as meaning hollow construction in every case.

Museum records.

馆藏记录

History and technical research.

历史与技术研究

Contemporary practice.

当代传承

What the sources do not settle.

Early lacquer vessels with cloth bodies do not by themselves date the beginning of dry-lacquer Buddhist images. The fourth-century images associated with Dai Kui are known only through later texts and do not survive. Material analysis of early objects describes those objects, and does not establish the recipe or durability of any present-day workshop.

早期织物胎漆器不能直接当作干漆佛像的起源年代;戴逵的四世纪造像仅见于后世文献,作品不存;古物的材料检测只说明该批作品,不能证明今日任何工坊的配方或耐久性。