Page 322 - 2020 Sept Important Chinese Art Sotheby's NYC Asia Week

9/2/2020 Important Chinese Art | Sotheby's

Impo rtant Chinese Art
New York |23 Sep 2020 | 09:00 AM EDT

Lot 727

A MOTHER- OF-PE ARL INLAID LACQUER CABINET, MING DYNASTY, 16TH / 17TH CENTUR Y
Estimate: 20,000 - 30,000 USD

A MOTHER-OF-PEARL INLAID LACQUER CABINET
MING DYNASTY, 16TH / 17TH CENTURY
明十六 / 十七世紀 褐漆嵌螺鈿攜琴訪友圖格櫃

of rectangular form, the slender, rounded corner posts framing a pair of doors surmounted by a display shelf, the dark brown
lacquer intricately inlaid with iridescent mother-of-pearl, the front panels depicting a continuous scene, a scholar with an
attendant nearby, standing at the steps of an elegant pavilion, waiting to greet another scholar crossing over a bridge followed by
an attendant carrying a fabric-wrapped qin, beneath an elegantly arching willow tree, below two recessed quatrefoils each
enclosing a pheasant in flight against a diaper ground, the side and top panels with delicately curling foliate motifs, all enclosed by
varying foliate and diaper borders and raised on a stepped base with a shaped apron, the interior with a single shelf

Height 24⅞ in., 63.2 cm: Width 18 in., 45.7 cm; Depth 13 in., 33 cm

Catalogue Note
During the Ming dynasty, mother-of-pearl inlaid lacquer, with its luminous tones of silvery-white with pale pink and green
highlights, enjoyed heightened popularity as a decorative technique in the production of large and small-scale furnishings. While
Song and Yuan dynasty precedents may have inspired Ming artisans, the intricacy and sophistication of the imagery were
innovations of the period. Scholarly themes such as the present were often derived from Wanli period (1572-1620) woodblock
prints and share many stylistic features seen in figural representation as well as in the foliate and geometric motifs, (see James C.
Y. Watt and Barbara Brennan Ford, East Asian Lacquer: The Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, 1991, pp. 135-8). Another significant contribution to the technique came via contact with the Ryukyu Islands, a
chain of islands extending from Kyushu to Taiwan. The first Ming emperor, Hongwu (r. 1368-1398), sent emissaries to the islands

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