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Suan Pakkad Palace stands on what was once a cabbage patch but is now one finest garden in Bangkok. The private collection of beautiful Thai objects from all periods is displayed in six traditional Thai Style Houses. The highlight is the renovated Lacquer Pavilion, across the reedy pond at the back of the grounds. Set on stilts, the pavilion is actually an amalgam of two temple buildings, a Manuscript Tower, which were found between Ayutthaya and Bang Pa-In. The interior walls are beautifully decorated with gilt on black lacquer: the upper panels depict the life of the Buddha whiles the lower ones show scenes from the Ramayana. Look out especially for the grisly details in the tableau on the back wall, showing the earth goddess drowning the evil forces of Mara. Underneath are depicted some European dandies on horseback, probably merchants, whose presence suggests that the work was executed before the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767. 
Inside The Laquer Pavilion |
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Inside The Laquer Pavilion | |
The carefully observed details of daily life and nature are skillful and lively, especially considering the restraints which the lacquering technique places on the artist, who has no opportunity for corrections or touching up: the design has to be punched into a piece of paper, which is then laid on the panel of black lacquer (a kind of plant resin). A small bag of chalk dust is pressed on top so that the dust penetrates the minute holes in the paper, leaving a line of dots on the lacquer to mark the pattern; a gummy substance is then applied to the background areas which are to remain black, before the whole surface is covered in microscopically thin squares of gold leaf. Thin sheets of blotting paper, sprinkled with water, are then laid over the panel, which when pulled off bring away the gummy substance and the unwanted pieces of gold leaves that are stuck to it, leaving the rest of the gold decoration in high relief against the black background. 
Suan Pakkad Palace Museum |
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Inside The Museum | |
The Ban Chiang House has a very good collection of elegant, whorled pottery and bronze Jewelry, which the former owner of Suan Pakkad Palace, Princess Chumbot, excavated from tombs at Ban Chiang, the major Bronze Age settlement in the northeast. Scattered around the museum's other five traditional houses, you will come across some attractive Thai and Khmer religious sculpture amongst an eclectic jumble of artifacts: fine ceramics as well as some intriguing kiln-wasters, failed pots which have melted together in the kiln to form weird, almost rubbery pieces of sculpture; beautiful betel-nut sets; and some rich teak carvings, including a 200-year-old temple door showing episodes from Sang Thong, a folk tale about a childless king and queen who discover a handsome son in a conch shell.
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