Interlude
The Khmer Rouge had erased the artisans. There was no one left to teach what I had come to find.
— Eric Stocker · field notes, Siem Reap, 1998
Exposition permanente · Salle I
Two brothers,
a lost art,
a generation of silent hands.
Five decades of mastery in eight rooms — from a Paris workshop to the lacquer trees of Kampong Thom, told in the order it happened.
Curated by Eric Stocker · Master Lacquerer · Compagnon du Devoir · Trophée Culture, Quai d'Orsay 2019
Eric Stocker
Workshop, Siem Reap · 2026
Begin the visit
Plan of the exhibition
Eight rooms, five decades.
Each room is a year, a place, and a turning point — the moments where a craft was learned, lost, rebuilt, and finally given to those who would carry it forward.
Salle I.
1974
Workshop · Atelier
Pierre Bobot's atelier
Paris, rue Bonaparte
Paris, rue Bonaparte
An apprentice meets his destiny.
At sixteen, Eric Stocker enters the workshop of Pierre Bobot — master lacquerer, restorer to the French National Museums, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.
Under Bobot's exacting eye, Eric learns the ancestral techniques of lacquer, gilding, polychrome, and marquetry. Months are spent learning to prepare a surface before he ever applies lacquer himself. The training is unhurried and uncompromising — the way Bobot was taught, the way the tradition demands.
That same year, he visits Eileen Gray at her apartment on rue Bonaparte to collect her legendary 1922 lacquer screen for restoration. He doesn't yet know these encounters will shape his entire life.
Salle II.
1980s
Restoration
Musée du Louvre
Mobilier National, Paris
Mobilier National, Paris
Twenty-five years inside the museum.
For two decades, Eric works as an artisan restorer for the Louvre and other French national institutions — gilding, lacquering, and polychroming museum-grade furniture and decorative objects of every period.
He earns the title of Compagnon du Devoir, joining one of France's most prestigious artisan guilds, a tradition stretching back to the cathedral builders of the Middle Ages. The work is invisible by definition: a restorer leaves no signature. The craft accumulates only in the hands.
Plate I
An apprentice studies the chef d'œuvre of a Compagnon du Devoir — the apprentice-master tradition that has survived in France since the cathedral builders. Image: Gamet, André · CC0 · Wikimedia.
Salle III.
1998
Arrival
Siem Reap, Cambodia
EU arts revival programme
EU arts revival programme
An ancient art on the brink of extinction.
Invited by the European Union to join an arts revival programme, Eric arrives in Cambodia and encounters a Khmer lacquerwork tradition more than a thousand years old.
The Khmer Rouge had systematically destroyed the country's artistic heritage. Traditional crafts — lacquer, gilding, polychrome painting — had been nearly erased. No living artisan knew the original techniques. The art was on the brink of extinction.
Eric makes a choice that will define his next quarter-century.
He stays.
Salle IV.
2008
Foundation
Stocker Studio, Siem Reap
with Thierry Stocker
with Thierry Stocker
A workshop of their own.
Joined by his brother Thierry, Eric opens Stocker Studio in Siem Reap. Together they push the boundaries of lacquer, developing textures never before combined.
Vegetal, mineral, animal: rye straw marquetry meets eggshell mosaic. Stingray skin meets gold leaf. Beetle wings meet copper patina. The workshop becomes a laboratory in which French savoir-faire and a thousand years of Khmer tradition produce something entirely new.
Plate II
Inside the workshop — the only atelier in Cambodia still using real natural vegetal lacquer, harvested by hand from the forests of Kampong Thom.
By the numbers
Five decades, in figures.
350+
Artisans trained
Over twenty-six years in partnership with Krousar Thmey.
70%
Of the workshop is deaf
Highly skilled professionals, not beneficiaries of charity.
30+
Lacquer coats per piece
Each cured for days, polished by hand, a single piece across months.
1/1
Atelier in the country
The only workshop in Cambodia still using natural vegetal lacquer.
Salle V.
2019
Recognition
Quai d'Orsay, Paris
Trophée Culture & Art de Vivre
Trophée Culture & Art de Vivre
The world takes notice.
Eric receives the Trophée des Français de l'Étranger in Culture & Art de Vivre, awarded at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. The prize recognises French citizens abroad who make extraordinary contributions to culture — a quiet acknowledgement of a life spent preserving and reinventing an ancient art.
Plate III
The Quai d'Orsay — French Ministry of Foreign Affairs — where Eric received the 2019 Trophée Culture & Art de Vivre. Image: Jebulon · CC0 · Wikimedia.
Salle VI.
Today
The atelier
Stocker Studio
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Three hundred and fifty hands.
Over seventy percent of the workshop's artisans are deaf — not as beneficiaries of charity, but as some of the finest lacquer artisans in Southeast Asia.
Their visual precision is exceptional. Their patience — honed by a lifetime of navigating a world designed for hearing people — is ideally suited to a craft that demands stillness and sustained attention. They can detect curing stages that hearing artisans miss entirely. They can feel the lacquer breathing.
The pieces that leave this workshop today are found in Sofitel, Park Hyatt, Raffles, and private collections from Singapore to Paris. Each one is signed by Eric and carried, by hand, to its first crate.
Recognition · Press · Commissions
What the work has gathered.
The full record of awards, commissions, exhibitions, and press — kept here, on a single page, for the curious.
Awards
- Trophée Culture / Art de Vivre 2019Quai d'Orsay, Paris · Trophée des Français de l'Étranger
- Trophées des Français d'AsieWinner — recognition of French citizens of Asia
Commissions
- Cartier
- Hermès
- Louis Vuitton
Exhibitions
- The Lotus CollectionSofitel Angkor Phokeethra · Siem Reap
- De l'Ombre à la LumièreFrench Residence, Singapore · 2015 — 2016
Selected press
- Le Petit Journal · L'art des maîtres laqueursCambodge · 2019
- Phnom Penh Post · Reviving the ancient art of lacquerSiem Reap Insider
- Khmer Times · Siem Reap's last bastion of traditional lacquerware
- Alexander Lamont · Eric Stocker, Lacquer MasterConversations on craft, 2021
Closing · Salle VII
The workshop is open
to visitors.
Come see the artisans at work, watch lacquer come alive under their hands, and discover pieces you will not find anywhere else on earth.
Plan your visit →
Stocker Studio · Atelier de Laque
Wat Bo Road, Siem Reap, Cambodia
Open Monday — Saturday · 09:00 — 17:00
Wat Bo Road, Siem Reap, Cambodia
Open Monday — Saturday · 09:00 — 17:00