A VERY FINELY CARVED IMPERIAL CINNABAR LACQUER 'HUNDRED BOYS' CIRCULAR BOX AND COVER

Details

A VERY FINELY CARVED IMPERIAL CINNABAR LACQUER 'HUNDRED BOYS' CIRCULAR BOX AND COVER
QIANLONG

Decorated to the cover of the box with groups of boys conversing, playing with firecrackers, fans, a drum, as well as playing leap frog and flying a kite, all within a terraced garden with a balustered interior of a scholar's room partially obscured by pine and plantain trees, the motif extending to the side of the box and cover but in a riverbank setting, all finely carved in high relief against a diapered-pattern background, the interior and base black (chips to interior rim)
5 3/8 in. (13.8 cm.) diam.

Lot Essay

It is very unusual to find lacquer of the Qianlong period so deeply carved with designs going over the edges of the cover to the sides in a highly intricate and very complex composition. Compare with three very similar Qianlong 'boys' box and cover, one with a Qianlong long mark from the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Zhongguo Meishu Quanji, Lacquer, Vol. 8, no. 168, p. 168; another illustrated in Le Musee Chinois de l'Imperatrice Eugenie, p. 49; and a third in The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco illustrated by Hai-Wai Yi-Chen, Chinese Art in Overseas Collections, Lacquerware, pl. 155.

(US$24,000-28,000)

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