The Lacquer Pavilion, situated on the edge of the lawn at the far end to the south of the Palace.


             This building was originally in Ayudhya and is believed to have been built by a member of the royal family around the mid-17th century. Later the building was dismantled and rebuilt at Wat Ban Kling, which is on the bank of the Chao Phraya between Ayudhya and Bang Pa-in. There were actually two buildings: a library for keeping scriptures, consisting of a room with a veranda around it, and a lacquer pavilion, made of wood with wall panels on three sides painted in gold on black lacquer.
           The two structures had deteriorated to such an extent that the villagers pulled them down and used the material to make one building. As the paintings in gold on black lacquer were barely visible, the wall panels that were put together did not tell the story in the right sequence. At the beginning of 1959, Prince Chumbhot and his wife heard that a small, almost deserted temple had a very old house that was greatly in need of repair. Despite its dilapidated condition, traces of some beauty could still be seen. The prince then proposed to rescue it by bringing it down to Suan Pakkad Palace. He built a hall for chanting and a landing pavilion for the temple in exchange for the old building. A substantial sum was spent on restoring the old structure, together with the paintings in gold on black lacquer. The new pavilion was the prince's present to his wife on her fiftieth birthday, on March 8, 1959.
            About 100 villagers from Ban Kling were invited to visit the pavilion in its new location.
At the time, the carving on the outdoor wall panels was greatly damaged and was barely visible as it had been exposed to the sun and rain for too long.
            The inner panels were in fairly good condition. The design of the windows showed Western influence. The paintings in the upper part depict the life of the Buddha and those of the lower part are scenes from the Ramakian; it is Ayudhya work from the reign of King Narai. Certain parts were so damaged that it was impossible to figure out what they were; only some lines of the original figures covered with gold leaf were slightly raised and became pronounced when gold leaf was applied to the wood. Then it was possible to tell what the painting was. Sometimes, however, it was not known until the lines were traced with black ink.
            In rebuilding the pavilion, Prince Chumbhot and his wife intended to restore it to its original form. The paintings had not been completely restored on all the panels by the time the pavilion had to be finished for Princess Pantip's fiftieth birthday celebration. The construction had to be based on estimating the length and width of the wooden panels to give the pavilion its original shape. The pictures do not, therefore, follow the proper sequence of the Buddha's life, though this does not lessen the importance or beauty of the painting.

 


 

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