Specimen i.
Stingray Skin
Galuchat
Prized for centuries in French decorative arts. Pearlescent, granular, incredibly durable.
Methods of the Atelier
No shortcuts.
No synthetics.
Only time.
Four core techniques, eight rare materials, seven stages of the work — every method in this workshop has been refined over decades. Some, over millennia.
Plan of the room
Four techniques, in the order they pass through the panel.
Each technique is taught and performed inside this single workshop in Siem Reap. They are the language of the work: every piece is a sentence written in some combination of these four.
Salle I.
Natural
Lacquer.
Lacquer.
Toxicodendron — laque vegetale
Deep. Timeless. Alive. The medium that holds everything else.
Our lacquer is tree resin — harvested by hand from Toxicodendron trees in Cambodian forests. Not paint. Not synthetic. The trees grow for fifteen years before the first cut.
We work with six families who maintain traditional harvesting methods, and we cultivate our own lacquer tree plantation to ensure the craft outlives us.
Each coat is applied by brush — tools unchanged for centuries. Every layer must cure three to seven days under controlled humidity before the next round of sanding. Standard pieces receive 20+ layers. Prestige pieces, 30 to 50. The translucency builds over time, creating a surface that shifts with the light — warm, deep, almost liquid. This is what separates real lacquer from everything else.
Stocker Studio is the only workshop in Cambodia using real natural vegetal lacquer.
- Source tree
- Toxicodendron
- Maturation
- 15 years
- Layers per piece
- 20 — 50
- Cure between coats
- 3 — 7 days
Plate I
The translucency of cured natural lacquer. The depth is not on the surface — it is built up of twenty visible layers, each a decision held for a week.
Salle II.
Gold Leaf
& Gilding.
& Gilding.
Dorure à l'eau · 24 carats
Sacred. Luminous. The same technique used in cathedrals and Khmer temples for a thousand years.
Traditional water gilding with 24-karat gold leaf, applied sheet by sheet, by hand. No adhesives — only water, breath, and patience.
The gold catches light in ways no paint can replicate. It glows from within, shifting as you move around the piece. We also use white gold leaf for contrast and fine detail work.
The artisan works in a still room, often holding their breath as the leaf is set down — a draft from a window can lift a sheet across the workshop and ruin a morning's work. Once the leaf is laid, it is burnished by agate, then sealed under further coats of lacquer until it appears suspended in the surface itself.
- Karat
- 24k · white gold
- Sheet thickness
- ~0.0001 mm
- Method
- Water + agate burnish
- Origin
- Cathedral & temple
Plate II
A Buddha sculpture in 24-karat gold leaf over natural lacquer. The same gilding tradition that finished altarpieces in 13th-century Paris and the Royal Palace at Phnom Penh.
Salle III.
Eggshell
Mosaic.
Mosaic.
Coquille d'œuf incrustée
Delicate. Infinite. A pattern grown by hand, fragment by fragment.
Fragments as small as a grain of sand, placed one at a time with tweezers into wet lacquer. Each piece requires thousands of individual fragments, creating organic patterns like cracked earth or living skin.
After the eggshell is set, we apply five to fifteen more coats of lacquer over the inlay. Then comes twenty to thirty hours of polishing — finishing with bare hands and oil — until the surface is glass-smooth and the eggshell glows beneath.
Hen shells produce the body of the pattern; quail shells, finer and more crystalline, are reserved for figurative line and detail. Read the full technique in our Carnet d'Atelier essay.
- Source shell
- Hen · quail
- Fragments / panel
- 4,000 — 12,000
- Coats over inlay
- 5 — 15
- Hand polish
- 20 — 30 hrs
Plate III
A bespoke console table — fan-scale eggshell composition built one fragment at a time across thirty days.
Salle IV.
Rye Straw
Marquetry.
Marquetry.
Marqueterie de paille
Warm. Geometric. Hypnotic. One of the rarest decorative techniques still practised anywhere.
An ancient French decorative art — split rye straw, arranged in precise geometric patterns. Each strand is hand-placed to catch light from different angles.
The natural golden hue shifts between warm amber and bright gold depending on the viewer's position. No two views of the same piece are identical.
This is one of the rarest decorative techniques still practised anywhere in the world. Eric learned it during his apprenticeship under Pierre Bobot, and brought it to Cambodia as part of the workshop's permanent vocabulary.
- Material
- Split rye straw
- Origin
- 17th c. France
- Lineage
- Pierre Bobot, Paris
- Practitioners worldwide
- Fewer than a dozen
Plate IV
Rye straw marquetry — the geometric language brought from a 1970s Parisian atelier to a workshop in Siem Reap.
Salle V · Cabinet of textures
Les Matières — rare textures.
Beyond the four core techniques, we work with extraordinary natural materials. Each adds a character that cannot be imitated.
Specimen ii.
Carp Skin
Peau de carpe
Delicate fish scales preserved under lacquer. Organic, almost reptilian, with an iridescent shimmer.
Specimen iii.
Salmon Skin
Peau de saumon
Fine-grained fish leather with a subtle scale pattern beneath the lacquer surface.
Specimen iv.
Horse Hair on Bamboo
Crin de cheval, bambou
Woven horse hair stretched over bamboo forms, then lacquered. Remarkable lightness with visible fibre.
Specimen v.
Cinnabar
Cinabre · HgS
Natural mineral pigment. The source of the legendary vermilion red of Asian lacquerware for three thousand years.
Specimen vi.
Beetle Wing Elytra
Élytre de scarabée
Iridescent jewel-beetle wings. A decorative material with a 3,000-year history; shimmers green-gold under light.
Specimen vii.
Botanical Oxidation
Cuivre oxydé · empreintes végétales
Copper leaf with real plant imprints, oxidized over time. Each piece develops unique patina — nature as co-creator.
Specimen viii.
Paua Abalone
Coquille de paua, Nouvelle-Zélande
New Zealand paua shell, cut and inlaid. Vivid blue-green iridescence that rivals precious gemstones.
Salle VI · The seven stages
From tree
to art.
Every piece follows the same patient journey. There are no shortcuts. The lacquer cures only by humidity — a process that no technology accelerates.
I.
Wood turning
Form is set
The form is turned or carved from hevea wood — a sustainable hardwood ideal for lacquer adhesion. Milled in Siem Reap and inspected before any sap touches it.
Stage time1 — 3 days
II.
Foundation coats
The base is built
Five to ten layers of natural lacquer, each curing 3 — 7 days under controlled humidity. This builds the deep, protective base.
Stage time2 — 5 weeks
III.
Sanding
Surface preparation
Meticulous hand-sanding between every coat with progressively finer materials. The surface must be flawless before decoration begins.
Stage timeContinuous
IV.
Decoration
The signature is laid
Gold leaf. Eggshell. Straw marquetry. Rare textures. The most skilled and time-intensive stage — days to weeks of concentrated work.
Stage timeDays — weeks
V.
Protective layers
Depth accumulates
Ten to twenty additional coats of lacquer over the decoration. Each layer adds depth and protection.
Stage time3 — 8 weeks
VI.
Polishing
By bare hand
Twenty to thirty hours by hand, finishing with bare skin and oil. The surface becomes mirror-smooth, warm to the touch.
Stage time20 — 30 hrs
VII.
Eric's eye
The signature
Every piece is personally inspected by Eric Stocker before it leaves the workshop. Nothing ships until it meets his standard.
Stage timeFinal pass
Total time
2 — 6 mo
Layers per piece
20 — 50
Pairs of hands
Dozens
Closing · Salle VII
See the process
in motion.
A short documentary filmed inside the workshop in Siem Reap — the trees, the harvest, the layered patience of every piece.
Watch — Lacquer, the living art →