Page 189 - Sotheby's Chinese Art and Porcelain Auction New York September 12, 2018

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A ‘TIANQI’ LACQUER ‘DRAGON’ The present panel with decoration to both sides no. 172; a smaller cabinet with a ‘dragon and
PANEL appears to have always served as a table top phoenix’ cartouche in the collection of the
on either a low or more likely a tall table so that Victoria and Albert Museum illustrated in Sir
LATE MING DYNASTY
the underside decoration could be more readily Harry Garner, Chinese Lacquer, London, 1979,
of elongated quatrefoil form, well-incised and admired. A four-legged tall incense stand with pl. 128; and a box in the collection of Fritz Low-
colored in varying shades of red, ocher, green a smaller top of similar decoration is illustrated Beer, published in Fritz Low-Beer, ‘Chinese
and black, the large barbed panel enclosing a in The Complete Collection of Ming and Qing Lacquer of the Middle and Late Ming Period’,
Þ ve-clawed dragon coiled and writhing among Furniture in the Palace Museum, vol. 18., Beijing, The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities Bulletin,
ruyi-shaped clouds in pursuit of a ‘ß aming 2015, pp 352-3. Another related example of no. 24, 1952, pl. 99.
pearl’, its powerful scaly body contorting in comparable size designed as a low table is $ 40,000-50,000
mid-air with tempestuous waves crashing illustrated in Lee Yu-kuan, Oriental Lacquer
against mountainous peaks to one side, all Art, Tokyo, 1972, pl. 244. Cabinets of the 㖶㛓ġġġ⠓㺮暚漵㇚䎈䲳㴟㢈⺷㜧
reserved on a sienna-colored ground Þ gured period also bore tianqi-decorated cartouches
with black wanzi pattern, the underside of similar form and motif. Compare a Wanli Ը๕
with further traces of lacquer decoration, all mark and period cabinet in the collection of 㱽⚳䥩Ṣ㓞啷
mounted as a low table on a modern, lacquered, the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in
cabriole-leg stand Complete Collection of the Treasures of the
Width 41 in., 104.1 cm Palace Museum: Furniture of the Ming and
Qing Dynasties, vol. 2, Hong Kong, 2002, cat.
PROVENANCE
French Private Collection.

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