Details
A RARE MALLOW-FORM RED LACQUER DISH
SONG DYNASTY (960-1279)

The cavetto formed with seven overlapping S-shaped petals encircling the slightly sunken central medallion, the exterior of conforming floral shape, raised on a short foot ring, covered entirely with red lacquer with the exception of the base with brown lacquer, bearing an impressed sealmark in red, the mouth bound with a metal rim
7 3/8 in. (18.7 cm.) wide, box
Exhibited
The Museum of East Asian Art, Cologne, 1990, Dragon and Phoenix, Chinese Lacquer Ware, The Lee Family Collection, Catalogue, no. 17
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1990/91
The Shoto Museum of Art, Shibuya, Japan, 1991, Chinese Lacquerware, Catalogue, no. 5
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1993, 2000 Years of Lacquer, Catalogue, no. 17

Lot Essay

The present dish belonged to a set of five dishes, one of which is now in the Tokyo National Museum, included in the exhibition, Oriental Lacquer Arts, Tokyo, 1977, and illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 424.

Two red lacquer dishes of this size and pattern are known, the first is in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, illustrated by C. Shangraw, 'Chinese Lacquers in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco', Orientations, April 1986, p. 26. It has been mentioned that the surface of these dishes with its fine hairlike crackle, known as 'cow-hair cracks', was due to the thinness of the lacquer; and differs to Yuan period lacquers which have deep linear crackles, owing to their different construction and thicker applications of lacquer, ibid. The second floral-form dish is in the Tokyo National Museum, illustrated in Oriental Lacquer Arts, 1977, no. 424.

Compared to the Asian Art Museum example, and also the smaller mallow-form black lacquer dish from the same collection offered in the present sale as lot 2103, the present dish is unique in that the indentation of each petal along the rims has a more pronounced curve which considerably emphasises its floral shape.

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