Page 58 - Sotheby's May 10th 2017 London Important Chinese Art

explain the unbroken stylistic development of carved lacquer
ware from the late Yuan to the early Ming dynasty, as well as
our di culties in dating these ne lacquer wares with greater
precision. In this context, it may be signi cant that Zhang Cheng
inscriptions and imperial reign marks of the Yongle (1403-1424)
and Xuande (1426-1435) periods can be found on similar or
identical pieces – as is the case with the present design: An even
larger dish carved with the same pattern and in the same style as
the present piece, but inscribed with both these reign marks, is in not added at the workshops, but later in the reign, after the
the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford ( g. 1, see below).
Whereas the Yongle carved lacquer style seems more
rmly identi ed through pieces with reign marks, little is known
about lacquer workshops in the Hongwu period, and a Hongwu
attribution of lacquer wares is still extremely rare, even though
the Gegu yaolun, which was composed in the Hongwu reign,
devotes a complete section to this medium. The existence of a
high-class production of imperial quality already at this period
is suggested by an important Ming document recording gifts
from the court of the Yongle Emperor to the Ashikaga Shogun
of Japan, starting right in the rst year of the Yongle reign and
continuing at least until 1407. It records a total of 203 pieces
of carved red lacquer to have been presented to the Japanese
ruler, of which the most important gift of fty-eight pieces in
1403 was described well enough to allow for identi cation of
some types.
Given the time-consuming process of building up a thick
enough layer of lacquer by adding and preparing multiple thin
coatings, each of which needs to dry before it can be polished
and the next one applied, and nally carving the design into
it – a process that can stretch over years – it is considered
improbable that those pieces could have been completed within
the rst year of the reign. It equally seems unlikely that such
work could have been done in the unruly times of the short
Jianwen period (1399-1402), particularly as the Emperor is
known to have ordered all work that was not vital to be stopped.
The types of lacquer included in the rst list of gifts to Japan in
1403, which can be identi ed, thus ought to be of Hongwu date.
In line with these considerations, Lee King-tsi and Hu Shih-
chang have proposed some distinguishing features between
Hongwu and Yongle carved lacquers and have tried to identify
Hongwu pieces (Lee & Hu 2001 and 2005-6). They have also
studied the various lacquer pieces inscribed with a nely
carved and gilded Xuande reign mark over a partly e aced,
thinly scratched Yongle mark. They have identi ed over thirty
such pieces, and have ascribed nine pieces with Yongle and/
or Xuande reign marks to the Hongwu period, including the
Ashmolean dish ( g. 1) and even the V&A lacquer table. They
56 SOTHEBY’S
suggest, for example, that ower-decorated pieces of the
Hongwu reign characteristically show mixed seasonal owers,
while those of the Yongle period tend to show only a single
ower. Dishes with a combination of owers such as seen here
are in fact extremely rare.
Lee and Hu propose that on lacquer, Yongle marks were
pieces had been moved from Nanjing to the new capital,
Beijing. This would explain why pieces from the Hongwu reign
could also bear a Yongle reign mark, why the calligraphy is
less accomplished than one would expect from an imperial
workshop, and why the thin needle engraving follows that of
the Zhang Cheng marks. The exact reason why some Yongle-
marked items are also inscribed with a Xuande reign mark is
still unresolved. It is possible that new lacquer pieces could
simply not be provided quickly enough, when the new emperor
ascended the throne, so that existing ones were re-attributed.
While Yuan wares generally feature a bolder, somewhat
rougher style, and dishes usually have a grooved rim and a guri
(tixi) design around the outside, Yongle pieces tend to display
the more quiet, homogeneous perfection demanded of imperial
wares, whether for use at court or as diplomatic gifts to foreign
rulers. The present dish displays a more controlled and assured
manner of execution than most Yuan pieces, yet evokes a more
lively sense of movement in the arrangement of its owers than
typical Yongle carvings. It would therefore seem to t best in
between, and may also have to be placed into the Hongwu reign.
Although it can of course not be proven that the present dish
was made by Zhang Cheng, its exceptional quality, its general
style, and the way the signature is inscribed certainly give no
reason to dispute such an attribution.
Only one companion piece, of the same design and similar
size as the present dish, but perhaps uninscribed, appears
to be recorded, probably in a Japanese private collection and
included in the exhibition Tōyō no shikkōgei/Oriental Lacquer
Arts, Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, 1977, cat. no. 513; the only
other dish of this design that appears to be preserved, in the
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, from the Beurdeley collection,
of even larger size and inscribed with a Xuande superimposed
over a Yongle reign mark, was o ered in these rooms 15th July
1980, lot 211, and included in the exhibition Ming. Fifty Years that
Changed China, The British Museum, London, 2014, catalogue
g. 87 ( g. 1), where a Hongwu date was put forward as the
most probable.
Stylistically related lacquer wares include, for example,
two smaller dishes carved with layered designs of peonies and
camellias, respectively, both attributed to the Yongle period,