Page 75 - Sothebys Important Chinese Art 09/13/17

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A MOTHER-OF-PEARL INLAID
BLACK LACQUER ‘PRUNUS’ TRAY
MING DYNASTY

of rectangular form with gently rounded upright
sides and a low foot, a branch of blossoming
prunus inlaid in mother-of-pearl across the
center, the leaves, petals, and branches nely
incised for naturalistic e ect, the base painted
evenly with brick-red lacquer
Length 12⅜ in., 31.4 cm

$ 6,000-8,000

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A BLACK AND RED LACQUER BOX,
COVER AND TRAY
YUAN DYNASTY, 14TH CENTURY

the black-lacquer exterior of the box and cover
lobed and applied with pewter wire to resemble
ten lotus petals, the at foliated top with
concentric pewter-wire bands originally holding
a mother-of-pearl medallion at the center, tted
with a black-lacquer tray, the interior of the box,
cover, and tray lacquered red (3)
Height 7 in., 18 cm

Lacquer boxes with interior trays and
compartments date to at least the Han dynasty,
and were typically used to hold cosmetics
and other personal articles. A nearly identical
Yuan period box and cover in the Royal Ontario
Museum is illustrated in Homage to Heaven,
Homage to Earth, Chinese Treasures of the Royal
Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1992, cat. no. 115. A
box of this type, but with the mother-of-pearl
medallion, in the collection of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art is included in James C. Y. Watt
and Barbara Brennan Ford, East Asian Lacquer:
The Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, New
York, 1991, pl. 3. A closely related box and cover
sold at Christie’s Paris, 22nd November 2005,
lot 83.

$ 4,000-6,000

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IMPORTANT CHINESE ART 73