Page 209 - 2019 October Important Chinese Art Sotheby's Hong Kong

fig. 1 fig. 2
Carved cinnabar lacquer table with phoenix, mark and period of Carved cinnabar lacquer square tray with phoenix, mark
Xuande and period of Xuande
© Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 3rd October 2018, lot 3402
圖一 圖二
明宣德 剔紅穿花龍鳳紋帶屜案 《大明宣德年製》款 明宣德 剔紅穿花雙鳳紋倭角方盤 《大明宣德年製》款
© 倫敦維多利亞與艾伯特博物館藏 香港蘇富比2018年10月3日，編號3402

This superbly carved lacquer table, treasured in a Japanese ground of lotuses and foliage amidst quatrefoil panels
museum collection for over 50 years, is an exceptional precisely matches that of the phoenixes on the current
example of early Ming lacquer, preserved in extraordinarily table, enabling a precise dating of it to the Xuande period.
good condition. The sensitive, naturalistic rendering of the The stylistic elements are so similar – the precise treatment
complex design of phoenix depicted opposing each other of the feathers, wings and tails of the phoenix, and the
in flight, the luxuriance of the interwoven lotus design, depiction of phoenix in reserve on the four corners – that it
and the large size of the piece are of very high quality. The is likely to have been carved by the same team of artisans.
shape of the low table is elegant, supported on four cabriole The identical design can also be seen on a Xuande mark
legs springing from an intricately formed barbed apron. Its and period lacquer tray formerly in the collections of Sir
production, probably in the official lacquer workshops of Percival David, Mrs Walter Sedgwick and Edward T. Chow,
the Guoyuan chang in Beijing would have been an extremely sold in these rooms, 3rd October 2018, lot 3402, from the
ambitious undertaking, and the precision of form and Speelman collection (fig. 2).
successful finish is a credit to the craftsmen working there.
The phoenix design can also be found on a Xuande period
The superb thick lacquer layer assembled for this table from cloisonné basin in the Uldry collection, illustrated in Helmut
numerous individual coatings was only rarely recreated in Brinker and Albert Lutz, Chinese Cloisonné: The Pierre Uldry
later periods. The soft, well-polished finish and the smooth, Collection, London, 1989 (German edition, Zurich, 1985), pl.
rounded outlines of the various motifs are also characteristic 19, where the authors argue that the birds are differentiated
of the wares created at that time; the exuberance and by the treatment of the long tail feathers to distinguish
complexity of the present design, however, are exceptional. between the male and female bird. They also illustrate, ibid.,
The creation of a piece of this scale and quality would fig. 55, a stone relief from the ruins of the Mongol capital
have been a highly ambitious undertaking, given the time- Dadu, dated to the second half of the 13th century. Carved
consuming process of building up a thick enough layer of with two phoenix within a quatrefoil, each with a different
lacquer by adding and preparing multiple thin coatings, each long tail plume, the decoration is remarkably similar to both
of which needs to dry before it can be polished and the next the cloisonné basin and the current lacquer tray. Clearly
one applied, and finally carving the design into it – a process this imperial Yuan decorative motif was a prototype for the
that can stretch over years. design used in Xuande imperial works of art.
The meticulous design of phoenixes on the current tray is The phoenix emblem was also a regularly used design motif
very closely related to that found on arguably the greatest on the highest quality blue and white porcelain produced
extant piece of early Ming lacquer - the Xuande mark and at the Imperial kilns of Jingdezhen in the Xuande period.
period table in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, For a Xuande reign-marked brushwasher painted with two
illustrated in Ming: Fifty Years That Changed China, The phoenix from the Qing court collection, preserved in the
British Museum, London, 2014, pp. 106-7, fig. 97 (fig. 1). The Palace Museum, Beijing, see The Complete Collection of
precision and carving of the design on the upper surface of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain
the table of a dragon and phoenix soaring amidst a dense with Underglazed Red (I), Shanghai, 2000, pl. 129.

207