Page 199 - Christie's Important Chinese Art, March 23 to 24 2023 New York

(inscription on the reverse of one cover)
PROPERTY FROM AN AMERICAN COLLECTION

1212
A RARE PAIR OF QIANGJIN ENGRAVED AND GILT-DECORATED The present set of covers were made for the sutra Dasheng Fawang jing, one
RED-LACQUERED WOOD SUTRA COVERS of the 108 volumes of the BKa-gyur, a sacred text representing the word of the
YONGLE PERIOD (1403-1425) Buddha. According to Dr Peter Lam in Layered Beauty, Hong Kong, 2010, p.
54, two sets of BKa-gyur were bestowed sequentially by the Emperor Yongle to
The reverse of one cover has a long inscription in Tibetan and Chinese two Buddhist abbots from Tibet in 1413 and 1416, now preserved at the Potala
enclosed within a large lotus-petal cartouche.
Palace and the Sera Monastery in Lhasa, respectively.
Each 28æ in. (73.1 cm.) long
A similar set of covers, once in the same collection as the current pair is
$70,000-90,000 dated c. 1410, published by J.C.Y. Watt and B.B. Ford, East Asian Lacquer:
The Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, 1991, pp. 116 and 117. (Fig. 1) The authors note that these lacquered
PROVENANCE:
Acquired by the current owner in the early 1990s. covers provide the earliest examples of Ming-style qiangjin work. A further
set is illustrated by R.D. Jacobsen, Appreciating China, Minneapolis Institute

美४珍藏 of Arts, 2002, no. 48. For other similar covers sold at auctions, see a set from
the Lee Family Collection, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, Important Chinese
明永樂ǎ紅漆戧金Ջ吉祥夾經板ˏ對 Lacquer from the Lee Family Collection, Part II, 1 December 2009, lot 1821; an
Ϝ源 inscribed pair sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 November 2012, lot 2260; a set
from the Baoyizhai Collection, sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 8 April 2014, lot
現藏家於 年代׀Ն藏
38; a single back cover sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 31 May 2017, lot 2816; and
most recently a single cover sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 29 November 2022,
lot 3021.

Fig. 1 Sutra covers
with the Eight
Buddhist Treasures,
Ming dynasty, Yongle
period (1403–1424).
Metropolitan Museum
of Art, Gift of Florence
and Herbert Irving, 2015,
2015.500.1.52a, b.
紅漆戧金 Ǘζ名經ǘ 夾
經板
明永樂
૯都會藝術
博ḵ館藏
ζ羅і斯及㈥Ώ
ṁg歐雲捐㈌
館藏編號
B
C