Ryukyu Shikki

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Ryukyu Shikki is a lacquer craft handed down mainly around Shuri in Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture. Lacquerware techniques are said to have been brought from China around the end of the 14th century, and production flourished during the Ryukyu Kingdom era of the 15th-16th centuries. The royal government established the Kaizuri Bugyosho office to manage and strengthen lacquerware production, introducing techniques from China and Satsuma while also organizing the cultivation of lacquer trees and the harvesting of lacquer as state policy. After the Satsuma invasion of 1609, Ryukyu Shikki came to be prized as a gift to the Tokugawa shogunate and various feudal lords, serving as a showcase of the Ryukyu Kingdom's technical skill abroad. Decorative techniques include chinkin, in which patterns are carved with a blade and fixed with gold; raden, in which mother-of-pearl or abalone shell is cut into patterns and inlaid; hakue, in which patterns are painted in lacquer and gold leaf applied; and tsuikin, a technique unique to Ryukyu. In tsuikin, pigment is kneaded into kurome lacquer until it forms a dough-like mass, which is rolled thin, cut into patterns, and applied, creating three-dimensional, showy decoration. The wooden bases are made from Okinawan trees such as deigo, banyan, and styrax, which shrink and crack little as they dry. It was designated a Traditional Craft of Okinawa Prefecture in 1974 and a Traditional Craft designated by the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry in 1986.