The J. Paul Getty Museum’s collections include several important examples of mid-18th century French furniture that incorporate panels of high quality Asian lacquer into their surface decoration. As part of an ongoing program of technical study of this furniture, scientists from the Getty Conservation Institute are working with conservators from the J. Paul Getty Museum to develop an analytical protocol capable of identifying, in great detail, the resin and oil components of period lacquers from both European and Asian sources. The protocol is based on pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) complemented with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and aims to provide information in a manner that is reliable, efficient, and requires as little sample material as possible.