TITLE:
A Preliminary Study of Three Finishing Materials for Traditional Chinese Furniture
AUTHORS:
Xin You Liu, Timar Maria Cristina, Varodi Anca Maria
KEYWORDS:
Traditional Chinese Finishing Materials, Chinese Lacquer, Chinese Wax, Tung Oil, Microscopy, FTIR
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Materials Physics and Chemistry,
Vol.4 No.5,
May
21,
2014
ABSTRACT: The traditional Chinese furniture evolved as an important part of the Chinese culture and civilization. Alongside design, structure, ornaments, the original finishes applied define the particularities and value of traditional Chinese furniture. This is because wood finishing not only enhances wood natural beauty by colour, gloss and highlighting of wooden texture, but also can be a means of exquisite decoration (e.g. engraved, gilded or painted lacquer works). Chinese lacquer, Tung oil and Chinese wax represent some of the most important finishing materials employed and were, therefore, selected for this study. The paper presents a brief macroscopic, microscopic and FTIR characterization of these materials. These results will be used as starting data in a further study on the ageing properties of these traditional finishing materials, useful for scientific conservation purposes.