Lacquer ware is one of the oldest arts. China, Japan and India have great traditions in the craft. The lacquered objects of these countries are praised for their richness of colour, beautiful designs and fine finish. Salarjung museum has a good collection of all these products.
Chinese lacquer ware

Like so many of its other arts, lacquer ware is traced to remote antiquity in China. It was in existence in the middle of the first millennium BC. In the beginning lacquer in China appears to have been applied on objects as a protective coat but soon it became medium for decoration. Lacquer was put to a number of uses by the Chinese. Lac is obtained in the form of sap from ‘Chi shu’, a species of trees cultivated in China. Lac can be given various colors of which the important are, black, red, brown and yellow. The base on which the lacquer is applied is usually wood, though other bases such as porcelain and brass are used. Some of the decorations used in lacquer are: painted lacquer, carved lacquer and relief ornament

But by far the best known lacquer ware is ‘Coromandel lacquer’. It consists chiefly of screens of considerable size and often in folds containing three dimensional rendering of natural, religious, and palace scenes. There was great demand for these screens in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries. This demand was met by the East India Company, which exported large quantities of this ware from the Coromandel Coast in India, thus providing name for this ware.