Sơn mài · Lacquer · Edition of 10
Tea caddy, eggshell lid
Vỏ trứng — eggshell inlay; here the whole lid, with the body in plain black lacquer.
Đỗ Thị Hương
A turned caddy in ten coats of black lacquer, with a lid covered entirely in duck eggshell sorted by curve and sanded back under water until the white is level with the black. A tin liner keeps the tea.
Hương’s whites were her mother’s. This is the smallest thing she makes and, she says, the hardest to get right.
- Materials
- Natural lacquer, duck eggshell, on turned jackfruit wood; tin liner
- Technique
- Sơn mài — 10 layers; eggshell lid wet-sanded
- Dimensions
- Ø 9 × 12 cm · Ø 3.5 × 4.7 in · 0.3 kg
- Edition
- Edition of 10 · Signed and sealed
- Made
- Hạ Thái, Thường Tín · 2026
The making
Nine weeks, in four movements
The coats do not care that the object is small.
I
The form
Jackfruit wood turned, sealed with cloth and clay; the liner fitted.
II
The black
Six coats of black lacquer on the body.
III
The shell
Eggshell pressed into the lid, fragment by fragment.
IV
The polish
Sanded back under water and polished until the white is level.
From the same village
