Page 247 - Important Chinese Art Hong Kong April 2, 2019 Sotheby's

This spectacular lacquer dish, intricately carved with
a powerfully rendered design of a pair of chilong, is an
extremely rare legacy of the Song dynasty. The artist has
achieved a remarkable three-dimensional effect by intricately
carving the dragons writhing amidst lingzhi, all framed by
a border of luxuriant chrysanthemum flowers. In its form,
overall quality and soft carving style, it is reminiscent of
a polychrome dish with an individual chilong sold in our
London rooms, 14th July 1981, lot 16 and again at Christie’s
Hong Kong, 28th November 2012, lot 2082, from the Lee
family collection. Both the dragons on the current dish and
the other are rendered as magnificent chilong.
Compare also the treatment of the pair of chilong on a box
in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated in
Chinese Art in Overseas Collections – Lacquerware, Taipei,
1987, p. 28, attributed to the Southern Song. The dragons
are similarly depicted as on the current dish, rendered
dynamically amidst lingzhi. For another example of Song
carved cinnabar lacquer ware from the Song dynasty
demonstrating similar intricate low-relief carving, see the
treatment of the floral spray on a Song dynasty cinnabar
lacquer cupstand originally from the Lee family collection,
included in the exhibition Dragon and Phoenix. Chinese
Lacquer Ware, The Lee Family Collection, The Museum of
East Asian Art, Cologne, 1990, cat. no. 30.
The motif of chilong is much more frequently found on Song
ceramics, such as Ding ware. See the Ding bowl incised
with a chilong in a lotus pond in the collection of the National
Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in China at the Inception
of the Second Millennium - Art and Culture of the Sung
Dynasty, Taipei, 2000, p. 163, no. III-17. See also a moulded
Ding dish illustrated ibid., p. 237, no. IV-55), similar to the
current lacquer dish in depicting two chilong in the centre.

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