Abstrct: Traditional Chinese lacquerware include plain lacquerware painted solely with monochrome lacquer finishes such as vermillion or black as well as those undergone processing techniques including carving, mother-ofpearl inlays, engraved-gold decorations, and gold-tracing lacquering. This article focus on the technique of mother-of-pearl inlays to specify and summarize the variation of their technical styles of different periods, with a special emphasis on Yuan-dynasty (1272-1368) lacquerware embellished with such inlays. The article first introduces and briefly discusses such lacquerware before the Yuan dynasty, summarizes the style and characteristics of the Yuan lacquerware of mother-of-pearl inlays so as to establish the distinctive “Yuan style”, and then analyzes and summarizes the technical styles of the mother-of-pearl-inlaid lacquerware of the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties. For such objects produced in the Ming dynasty, which lasted for as long as approximately 300 years, the article divided the period into two sections (early years and late years) to specify the characteristics of objects of this period. At last, Qing-dynasty (1644-1911) mother-of-pearl inlays are reviewed.

Key Words: China, lacquerware, mother-of-pearl inlays, the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties