{"product_id":"vintage-chinese-gilt-lacquered-lotus-wedding-bucket-c-1900-1950","title":"Vintage Chinese Lacquered Lotus and Bird Wedding Bucket, c. 1920–1960","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA lidded coopered bucket with a tall arched carrying handle, lacquered oxblood red and painted by hand with lotus, lily pads and a bird.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe painting is the piece. Lotus flowers open in cream and coral with the petal tips brushed darker, buds stand on their stems beside them, and broad lily pads spread flat in a soft green with the veining drawn over the top in gold. The lid carries the full composition inside a circular gilt reserve, flowers and pads together with a small bird coming in over the top of them, and the same scheme runs around the body. Gilt scrollwork borders frame the lid, and the handle is drawn with gold vine and rosettes down both posts and across the crown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe body is built the old way, from vertical staves fitted edge to edge and drawn tight. Two broad flat bands encircle it, one under the rim and one at the foot, lapped where the ends meet and pinned with two pegs, and both are finished in gold. Where the gilding stops at the upper edge the pale wood of the band shows through, so the bands are worked timber and not metal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe lid drops down inside the rim and lifts out clean. The handle is a fixed arch on two posts mortised into the sides, standing well clear of the lid so the piece carries level. Inside, the bucket is painted flat black and the vertical stave joints run right up the wall, unfilled and unsanded, which is what a working vessel looks like from the inside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe form is the Chinese lidded carrying bucket, made to move water, rice or food and made in quantity across the southern provinces. Plain ones were farm equipment. A bucket lacquered on every outside surface and then painted was a dowry or presentation piece, carried in a marriage procession or used to send food between households, and it is the decorated ones that survived because they were kept rather than worked to death. The trade sells them as wedding buckets for that reason.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe decoration is not arbitrary. Lotus carries the pun that Chinese ornament is built on, the flower reading as continuous and as harmony, and a bird set with lotus turns the phrase into a wish for a household. That vocabulary is the ordinary language of Chinese marriage goods and it is why the motif appears on this object and not, say, a landscape.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe construction is traditional throughout and puts no part of the piece in the industrial era. Coopered staves rather than a turned or laminated body, gilded timber bands lapped and pegged rather than rolled metal strip, a handle mortised into the sides rather than bolted through, and a sealed black interior that only a vessel meant to hold something needs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe painting sets the ceiling. This is brushwork, laid in by hand colour over colour with the gold drawn on last, and every leaf and border is a little different from its neighbour. The Chinese decorative buckets that reached American shops from the nineteen seventies on are turned or laminated bodies carrying flat stencilled work or applied transfers, and nothing in this piece is either.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn that evidence it is offered as c. 1920 to 1960. Four things would narrow it: whether the staves show hand plane marks or an even machine thickness, whether the bands are split bamboo or sawn softwood under the gilding, whether the small metal plate at one handle post is an original fitting or a later repair, and whether any paper label, export stamp or inked character survives inside the lid or on the base.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n  \u003ctbody\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eType\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLidded carrying bucket, coopered wood, lacquered and hand painted\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eChinese\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eConstruction\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVertical staves fitted edge to edge, two gilded timber bands lapped and pegged, drop in lid, fixed arched handle on two mortised posts\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eGround\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOxblood red lacquer over the whole exterior, flat black paint inside\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHand painted. Lotus flowers in cream and coral with buds, green lily pads veined in gold, and a bird on the lid, inside gilt scrollwork borders, with gold vine and rosettes on the handle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNone found\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1920–1960\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e20 in. overall to the top of the handle\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBody Height\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e11 in. to the rim\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDiameter\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e13 in.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e7 lb.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and complete with its lid and its handle. Lacquer ground intact with the rubbing, chipping and small losses at the high points that a carried vessel collects, heaviest along the crown of the handle, the post edges, the rim and the foot, showing pale wood beneath. Painting legible and bright throughout with expected wear. Staves tight, bands in place and pegged, interior black paint worn as used. A small metal plate is fitted at one handle post. Sold as a decorative vessel and not as watertight.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a piece that does two jobs at once. Closed, it is a lacquered object with a good silhouette, the tall handle giving it the height that a bowl or a box cannot, and the lid painting means it reads from above as well as from the side. Open, it holds things, and a lidded vessel that swallows kindling, rolled towels, umbrellas or stems earns its floor space.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRed, green and gold against wood is the reliable combination. The oxblood is a deep muted red rather than a bright one, the lotus green is soft rather than acid, and the gold picks up whatever brass is already in the room. It gives an interior a single point of colour without committing it to a scheme.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe value is in the hand work. Plain coopered buckets are common and cheap, machine made painted ones are everywhere, and a bucket carrying brushwork of this quality with its lid, its handle and both bands intact is the uncommon version of a familiar object. It reads as collected rather than bought.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50412553371753,"sku":"VE-1691","price":1208.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/ve-1691-01.jpg?v=1790243172","url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/products\/vintage-chinese-gilt-lacquered-lotus-wedding-bucket-c-1900-1950","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}