A very fine cinnabar lacquer carved tray
16th century
The square tray with canted corners, freely carved to the centre with a pictorial landscape scene, depicting an equestrian dignitary flanked by attendants crossing a bridge, with further figures standing and seated within open pavilions and gates, with two inscriptions reading Tangsha Fu and Jiangcheng, all set on the shore of a lake with islands and mountainous peaks in the background, the underside alternately carved with lychees and blossoming camellias, above a classic-scroll border at the foot, the base lacquered black, wood box.
18.5cm (7¼in) wide (2).
The square tray with canted corners, freely carved to the centre with a pictorial landscape scene, depicting an equestrian dignitary flanked by attendants crossing a bridge, with further figures standing and seated within open pavilions and gates, with two inscriptions reading Tangsha Fu and Jiangcheng, all set on the shore of a lake with islands and mountainous peaks in the background, the underside alternately carved with lychees and blossoming camellias, above a classic-scroll border at the foot, the base lacquered black, wood box.
18.5cm (7¼in) wide (2).
Estimate:
£80,000 - 120,000
HK$ 950,000 - 1.4 million
US$ 120,000 - 180,000
HK$ 950,000 - 1.4 million
US$ 120,000 - 180,000
Footnotes
- Square and rectangular dishes and trays with canted corners are typical of lacquer production during the middle of the Ming Dynasty. Compare a related square dish, similarly carved with equestrian figures crossing a bridge, illustrated in 2000 Years of Chinese Lacquer, Hong Kong, 1993, Catalogue no.73. Another of similar form and carved to the interior with another lakeside scene framed by scrolling peonies at the rim, attributed to Wang Song and dated to the middle of the Ming Dynasty, is in the Imperial Court Collection, illustrated in Carved Lacquer in the Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, 1985, fig.134.
A circular box and cover in the British Museum, dated to the 15th-16th century, is carved with a similar scene, with a procession of equestrian figures following a path to the left of the composition to an open gate and tiered pavilion full of seated figures, illustrated by H.Garner, Chinese Lacquer, London, 1979, pl.63.
A rectangular tray with canted corners carved to depict various dancers and musicians within a fenced garden terrace from the Lee Family collection was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 1 December 2009, lot 1831, where it was noted in the catalogue footnote that the production of it and the related dish exhibited in Hong Kong in 1993 (referred to above) have both been attributed to the Yunnan or Dali regions.
Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art
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