Page 218 - Sothebys Speelman Gems of Chinese Art

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A CARVED IVORY MELON- 清十八世紀
SHAPED ‘EROTIC’ BOX AND 牙雕外瓜蟲內春宮蓋盒

COVER
QING DYNASTY, 18TH Two boxes of this type were sold in our London rooms, 4th
November 2009, lot 170, and 17th December 1996, lot 211;
CENTURY and another, but with the interior carved with a river scene
in the base and a bird in a blossoming prunus tree in the
carved in openwork in the form of an elongated melon cover, sold in our New York rooms, 23rd September 1995,
attached to a gnarled stalk wreathed in furled leaves and lot 308. Compare a similarly fashioned carving of a melon in
curling tendrils, accompanied by an attendant fruit and the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Jiangxiu
blossom and two small insects clambering on its lobed sides, yu xiangong Ming Qing diaoke zhan. Xiangya xijiao pian/
the box opening to reveal two erotic scenes enclosed in the Uncanny Ingenuity and Celestial Feasts, the Carving of Ming
parted sections, each depicting a couple engaged in amorous and Qing Dynasties: The Art of Ivory and Rhinoceros Horn
positions, either on a daybed or on a large sheet thrown on the Carving, Taipei, 2009, pl. 3. A further example of an ivory
floor, the ivory patinated to a warm cream-yellow colour with melon-shaped box with insects crawling on the surface and
faint pigmented details on the carved scenes revealing a hidden scene inside is published in Craig Clunas,
11.4 cm, 4½ in. Chinese Ivories from the Shang to the Qing, London, 1984, p.
48, no. 189.
◉ HK$250,000-350,000
US$ 32,200-45,100

216 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比