One of the centerpieces of Chinese sculpture in the Asian Art collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an early seventh-century seated Buddha (19.186). The life-size image was executed in jiā zhù , or dry lacquer, a technique of layering woven textile saturated with Asian lacquer to model hollow three-dimensional objects. From 2016-2017, The Met's Buddha was examined and treated in the Department of Objects Conservation in preparation for the exhibition "Secrets of the Lacquer Buddha" at the Freer | Sackler Galleries in Washington, D.C. (December 9, 2017 to June 10, 2018). The exhibition brought together for the first time the only three known sixth- and seventh-century, life-size Chinese lacquer Buddha sculptures from The Metropolitan Museum, the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, and the Freer Gallery of Art. Working in close collaboration, Met conservators, mount makers, and members of the Imaging Department designed an elaborate carbon fiber internal support for the Buddha, using state-of-the-art 3D scanning and milling technologies to safeguard this delicate work during transport and display. This paper documents the entire project from initial imaging to the successful fabrication of the required support structure.