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A LARGE AND RARE INSCRIBED IRON 明萬曆十七年（1589年） 鐵蓮紋大缸 A RARE GILT-INCISED ‘QIANGJIN’ AND A circular Wanli reign-marked dish of related form
RAIN DRUM, DATED WANLI 17TH YEAR, 銘文： ‘TIANQI’ LACQUER ‘DRAGON’ SQUARE DISH, and decorative lacquer technique was sold in our
CORRESPONDING TO 1589 萬曆十七年三月 MARK AND PERIOD OF WANLI, DATED Hong Kong rooms, 7th October 2013, lot 158, from the
inscribed to one side with a cast seven-character mark Wanli XINMAO YEAR, CORRESPONDING TO 1591 collection of Sakamoto Gorō. Compare another bearing
a Wanli yiwei cyclical date (1595) from the Lee Family
shiqi nian san yue (Wanli seventeenth year, third month) 來源 Width 7½ in., 19 cm Collection, included in the exhibition Dragon and Phoenix.
Width across the handles 34 in., 86.4 cm Ross Levett Antiques，Tenants Harbor，1999年7月2日
PROVENANCE Chinese Lacquer Ware, The Museum of East Asian Art,
PROVENANCE Cologne, 1990, cat. no. 81; another, also dated 1595, included
Japanese Private Collection. in the exhibition 2000 Years of Chinese Lacquer, op.cit., cat.
Ross Levett Antiques, Tenants Harbor, 2nd July 1999.
The current dish is an extremely rare example of the no. 84; and a third, with a cyclical date renchen (1592), sold
$ 20,000-30,000 developments in lacquer decorative techniques during in our Hong Kong rooms, 27th April 2003, lot 291.
the late Ming period, which combined two methods, tianqi ⊖ $ 40,000-60,000
and qiangjin, for use on imperial lacquer and also employs
the very rare technique of the use of silver on lacquer. 明萬曆辛卯（1591年） 戧金填漆龍紋倭角方
The tianqi method, or ‘in-filled lacquer’, consists of filling
outlined areas with different-colored lacquer, thereby 盤 《大明萬曆辛卯年製》款
defining the detailed pattern. In contrast, qiangjin involves
the inlaying of thin gold leaf into finely-incised designs onto a 來源
lacquer foundation. This latter technique was popular during 日本私人收藏
the Yongle period, and can be seen on red-lacquered sutra
covers where the surfaces have been ornately decorated
in gilt; for example see one included in the exhibition 2000
Years of Chinese Lacquer, The Chinese University of Hong
Kong, Hong Kong, 1993, cat. no. 79.

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