Page 108 - 2021 March 15th Fine Chinese Paintings and Works of Art, Bonhams NYC New York

PROPERTY FROM THE MEE-DIN AND ROBERT W. MOORE PROPERTY FROM THE MEE-DIN AND ROBERT W. MOORE
COLLECTION OF CHINESE LACQUER COLLECTION OF CHINESE LACQUER

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A MING CARVED CINNABAR LACQUER CIRCULAR COVER A FINE CARVED CINNABAR LACQUER CIRCULAR BOX AND
(AND BOX) FLAT COVER
The cover 15th Century, the replacement Japanese box possibly Ming Dynasty, 16th Century
Muromachi period Delicately carved in relief with a seated figure of Budai resting on his
The cover carved in deep dense relief with a flowering peony at the travelling bag with a fly whisk in his left hand on a rising knoll with
center and surrounded by leafy foliage and buds and revealing a yellow dense floral-cell-ground beneath a gnarled pine itself set against a
lacquer below, the Japanese lacquer bottom-half with Muromachi-type ground of horizontal grooves with vertical ticks to describe the sky, the
mottled ‘merging’ red and black lacquer carved with low-relif foliage. straight sides of the box and cover very neatly carved with a finely-
2 1/2in (6.3cm) diameter channelled key-pattern band, a simple rounded foot ring and black-
lacquered flat base.
$1,500 - 2,500 2 1/2in (6.3cm) diameter

明 十五世紀 剔紅牡丹紋圓蓋 配日本作盒身 $4,000 - 6,000

For another similar (box and) cover, see Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, The 明 十六世紀 剔紅布袋圖蓋盒
Baoyizhai Collection of Chinese Lacquer, Part I, 8 April 2014, lot 34
where the flower is described as a camillia. For a slightly smaller circular box and cover dated to the sixteenth
century and simialrly carved with a seated figure of Budai on a rising
Compare two closely related examples, both described as depicting knoll but beneath a blossoming prunus, rather than the pine of our
peony, one illustrated in Imported Lacquerwork – Chinese, Korean and example, and accompanied by children, see Christie’s, Hong Kong, 1
Ryukyuan (Okinawa), Selections From The Tokugawa Art Museum, June 2011, lot 3840. For another very similar-sized box and flat cover
Nagoya, 1997, p. 42, no. 59 and another published in Masterpieces of with identically treated channelled-key-pattern at the sides but with
Chinese Lacquer Ware in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1971, an elegant female and child, rather than Budai, but set against the
pp.85-86, no. 18, col. pl. 18. For a 15th century Muromachi box with same sky treatment, see Masterpieces of Chinese Lacquer Ware in the
classic ‘merging’ red and black lacquer, see Ann Yonemura, ‘The Art National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1971, p. 85, no. 17, col. pl. 17.
of Chinese Lacquer’, Asian Art, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian
Institution, Fall/Winter Issue, 1987-1988, pp. 38-39, fig. 13. For a similar depiction of this amusing scene on a small box and
cover dated to the late Ming dynasty, see Zhu Jiajin and Xia Gengqi,
Zhongguo qiqi quanji. Ming [Lacquer treasures from China. Ming
dynasty], vol. 5, Fuzhou, Fujian, 1995, pp. 170-171, no. 161; and a
similar-sized example also depicting the seated Budai and children
dated to the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century was sold at
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 4 May 1994, lot 289. A hexagonal tired box
and cover carved with a scene of Budai in a landscape is illustrated by
Derek Clifford, Chinese Carved Lacquer, London, 1992, p. 61, no. 37.

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