Black-Lacquer Twin Plates with a Gold-Painted Landscape Design

Qianlong period, Qing Dynasty
Height: 3.7cm
Diameter of mouth: 36.7*19cm

The plate is shaped like two overlapping diamonds and coated with black lacquer as the background, on which there's gold-painted landscape. The polished part in the middle of the plate is painted with a landscape that features mountains in the distance and rivers nearby as well as towers, pavilions and a person rowing a boat in the river. The bottom of the plate has gold-painted floral motifs of golden chrysanthemum flowers and peonies that are outlined in red lacquer, with four gold-filled characters of "qian long nian zhi" (meaning "made during Emperor Qianlong's reign of the Qing Dynasty") in regular script in the middle.

The gradation of gold on this plate is clear, thanks to various gold painting techniques, which are the "mosaic gold techniques" described in the Records of Lacquering.