Page 134 - Christies Asia Week 2015 Chinese Works of Art

2092
A RARE CARVED RED LACQUER TRAY
YUAN-EARLY MING DYNASTY, 13TH-14TH CENTURY

The oval tray is carved with two three-clawed chilong contesting a lingzhi stem on a ground of
fnely carved waves encircled by a border of larger crashing waves. The reverse is carved with
tixi scroll meander, and the tray is raised on a shallow foot ring, with the base covered in black
lacquer.
8¡ in. (21.2 cm.) long

$80,000-120,000

PROVENANCE:

A prominent Parisian collector, acquired in the frst half of the 20th century.

Chilong of the type seen on this tray are seen on carved lacquer wares as early as the Song dynasty,
such as the circular box which is carved through black lacquer to a red ground with two chilong
circling each other amidst clouds, and dated to the Southern Song dynasty, illustrated in The Colors
and Forms of Song and Yuan China: Featuring Lacquerwares, Ceramics, and Metalwares, Nezu
Institute of Fine Arts, Tokyo, 2004, no. 85. This same type of decoration can be seen on another
black lacquer circular box from the Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, illustrated by James C. Y.
Watt and Barbara Brennan Ford, in East Asian Lacquer, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
1991, pp. 62-3, no. 16, where it is dated late Song to Yuan period, late 13th-early 14th century.
Similar chilong shown with lingzhi are seen on carved red lacquer wares dated to the early Ming
dynasty, such as the circular box in the Qing Court Collection, illustrated in The Complete Collection
of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 45 - Lacquer Wares of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, Hong
Kong, 2006, pp. 40-41, no. 25, which has an inscription dating it to the Yongle period. An oval tray
with decoration similar to that of the present oval tray, of two chilong with lingzhi on a wave ground
and within a wind-tossed wave border, but with the addition of an outer band of lingzhi scroll below
the rim, is illustrated in Zhongguo Meishu Fenglei Quanji, Lacquer Treasures from China: The Ming
Dynasty, vol. 5, Fujian, 1995, p. 42, no. 42, where it is dated to the Xuande period. The particular
style of the tixi scroll on the exterior of the present oval tray, however, suggests a somewhat earlier,
Yuan dynasty date, and relates very well to the tixi scroll seen on the exterior of a foral-lobed, red
lacquer dish illustrated by Simon Kwan in Chinese Lacquer, Hong Kong, 2010, p. 148, no. 32, which is
dated to the Yuan dynasty.

元/明初 剔紅雙龍戲芝圖橢圓托盤

(reverse)

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