Carving: Lohan (Rakan) Nantimitolo, Base

This is the base for a Chinese lacquer carving of Nantimitolo, an enlightened Buddhist disciple (Lohan) who is called the Taming Dragon Lohan due to him subduing the dragon guard of the dragon king in order to bring the Buddhist sutras back to Earth. Lacquerware was typically produced in government-sponsored workshops, though this was not always the case. In times of economic prosperity, the commercial workshops of southern China, particularly the southeastern provinces of the Song and Yuan periods (13th-14th century) and the late Ming era (1368-1644), were innovative in their approaches to creating lacquer items. Lacquer items from the Qing palace workshops were, at first, carved by craftsmen capable of overcoming the difficulties of lacquer carving due to their experience carving bamboo and ivory. However, the rapid political and economic decline of the Qing Dynasty following the reign of Qianlong (1735-1796) resulted in the closing down of many palace workshops, and the lacquer items made afterwards were fewer and had diminished in quality.

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