Page 104 - Christie's Fine Chinese Paintings March 19 2019 Auction

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION
1644
A MOTHER-OF-PEARL-INLAID BLACK LACQUER SQUARE DISH
LATE YUAN-EARLY MING DYNASTY, 14TH-15TH CENTURY
The dish has chamfered corners and is fnely inlaid with mother-of-pearl in the recessed center with a
scene of two horses behind a willow tree and rocky outcrop walking toward two attendants. The cavetto is
decorated with continuous lotus scroll, and the reverse is lacquered black.
7 in. (17.8 cm.) square, silk pouch, Japanese lacquered wood box

$30,000-50,000
PROVENANCE
Jean-Pierre Dubosc (1903-1988) Collection, Kamakura and Paris.
Eskenazi Ltd., London.
EXHIBITED
London, Eskenazi Ltd., Chinese Lacquer from the Jean-Pierre Dubosc Collection and others, 8 - 22
December 1992.
LITERATURE
Eskenazi Ltd., Chinese Lacquer from the Jean-Pierre Dubosc Collection and others, London, 1992, no. 13.
The relatively freely-arranged lotus scroll depicted on the border of the present dish can be compared
to the foral scrolls seen on fourteenth century blue and white porcelain dishes. Floral scrolls on lacquer
dishes of this type, but of later periods, are typically denser and more formally arranged.
A lacquer dish with related lotus scroll, dated to the 14th century, is illustrated by Tokyo National
Museum in Chugoku No Raden (Mother of Pearl inlay in Chinese lacquer art), Tokyo, 1981, no. 29.
See, also, a lacquer box dated to the Yuan dynasty, decorated with a more elongated fower scroll but
with a similarly free positioning of the fower heads, illustrated by G. Kuwayama in Far Eastern Lacquer,
Los Angeles, 1982, p. 68, no. 13.
For a later mother-of-pearl-inlaid square dish with a denser foral scroll, dated to 16th century, see
H. Garner, Chinese and Associated Lacquer from the Garner Collection, London, 1973, no. 122, also
published in H. Garner, Chinese Lacquer, London, 1979, pl. 171.
元末/明初 十四/十五世紀 黑漆螺鈿人物故事圖倭角方盤

(another view with box)

102