Dimensions: 45"H x 30.5"W Chinese cinnabar carving of large wall painting, The Thousands layers of reddish-orange lacquer, or cinnabar, in rectangular shape finely carved in relief to depict a scene showing group of sages in various pursuits against pavilions within waterside mountainous landscape. Bordered by intriguingly carving of scrolling tendrils and blooms frame. LOT NOTES: In its original form, cinnabar is crystallized red mercuric sulphide (HgS), the main ore bearing mercury. Cinnabar has been used for thousands of years as a coloring agent because of its intense red-orange color. It is obtained naturally by grinding ore into a fine powder then mixing the powder into dyes, paints and other finishes such as lacquer. It can also be manufactured by treating a mixture of liquid mercury and sulfur with potassium hydroxide. Cinnabar is the primary pigment in colors commonly referred to as vermillion and Chinese red.Cinnabar is the color; lacquer is the material from which the objects are carved.Thin layers of lacquer are applied over the basic form. Each layer must harden before applying the next. Eventually the layers are thick enough to carve. Depth of carving averages about one-eighth to one-quarter of an inch. Carved lacquer from classical periods in Japan and China, 500-1700 AD, can have as many as 200-300 separate layers. Workshop records from those early periods speak of large pieces that took years to prepare and up to several years to carve. Reddish-orange carved lacquer, or cinnabar, has been widely exported to the West for over three hundred years.