Shikki (Lacquerware)

Shikki (漆器) is the general term for a finished piece of Japanese lacquerware: a bowl, tray, box, or other object built from a base material, most often wood, and coated in multiple layers of cured urushi. Where urushi refers to the sap and the finish itself, shikki refers to the object it produces, the same distinction as calling something “porcelain” versus calling it “a porcelain bowl.”

Regional shikki traditions each apply the same underlying material differently. Wajima-nuri, from Ishikawa Prefecture, is known for an unusually durable, many-layered build-up of coats reinforced with fabric and jinoko, a fired diatomaceous-earth powder; Yamanaka lacquerware is known instead for extremely thin, precisely turned wooden bases. What every genuine shikki piece shares is real urushi as the finish, which is what separates it from Japanning, the Western imitation technique.