Lot Essay
Two similar but slightly later inlaid lacquer boxes have been sold recently in these rooms; October 17, 1990, lot 272 and October 24, 1991, lot 936
This box is a masterpiece of the early Choson period. It most closely resembles a large box in the Tokyo National Museum that can be securely dated to the 16th century.
The evolution of inlaid lacquer during the Choson period has recently been outlined by James Watt, who identified certain changes that occurred in both technique and style (see James C.Y. Watt and Barbara Ford, East Asian Lacquer: The Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991, pp. 303-325). From the beginning of the Choson period, a single floral scroll is characteristically distributed over the entire surface. In early examples, such as this box, there are several types of flowers growing from the same vine. In this case, one is a peony and one is a tightly closed flower. In later examples there is only one flower, usually a peony or lotus and the scrolling vine becomes more regular and geometric in character. The later version of the peony flower is in open form with separated petals and the flowers tend to be laid out in parallel linear scrolls. The acanthus-type leaf with complex outline seen on this box is well known on Chinese blue-and-white porcelain of the Yuan and early Ming periods and does not recur in later Korean lacquer.
A native Korean innovation in the fifteenth century is the crackling of the mother of pearl before it is inlaid in order to enhance the iridescence. It is not known how this pattern of "accidental cracks" was achieved. Another innovation is the use of circular dots as space fillers. On later boxes these dots are monotonously regular in size and spacing. Later boxes also tend to reintroduce the Koryo dynasty technique of using twisted metal wire to define the stem of the vine.
The box shown here is stylistically later than the 15th century example in the Irving Collection (Watt, ibid, no. 154) but obviously earlier that the 17th and 18th century examples in that collection. In fact, it relates most closely to a small assemblage of lacquers in the Tokyo National Museum that are famous for their provenance and secure dating. The group consists of a small desk and writing box which are stored in a large rectangular box of the type usually used as a garment container. These objects originally belonged to Ouchi Yoshitaka (1507-51). The Ouchi were a daimyo family who ruled over the far western part of Honshu from the 14th through the 16th centuries. Yoshitaka is believed to have commissioned the set from a Korean craftsman. The garment box has the same combination of closed and open flowers and acanthus leaves on a loosely scrolling vine, as well as the dots used as space fillers. It also shares with the present example the use of inlaid cloud-like shapes spaced at regular intervals along the edge to create the kind of frame for the vine (see Watt, ibid, p. 309, fig. 34; and Okada Jo, Toyo shitsugeishi no kenkyu [Research on the history of East Asian lacquer], Tokyo: Chuo Koron Bijutsu Shuppan, 1978, p. 334, fig. 89).
This box is a masterpiece of the early Choson period. It most closely resembles a large box in the Tokyo National Museum that can be securely dated to the 16th century.
The evolution of inlaid lacquer during the Choson period has recently been outlined by James Watt, who identified certain changes that occurred in both technique and style (see James C.Y. Watt and Barbara Ford, East Asian Lacquer: The Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991, pp. 303-325). From the beginning of the Choson period, a single floral scroll is characteristically distributed over the entire surface. In early examples, such as this box, there are several types of flowers growing from the same vine. In this case, one is a peony and one is a tightly closed flower. In later examples there is only one flower, usually a peony or lotus and the scrolling vine becomes more regular and geometric in character. The later version of the peony flower is in open form with separated petals and the flowers tend to be laid out in parallel linear scrolls. The acanthus-type leaf with complex outline seen on this box is well known on Chinese blue-and-white porcelain of the Yuan and early Ming periods and does not recur in later Korean lacquer.
A native Korean innovation in the fifteenth century is the crackling of the mother of pearl before it is inlaid in order to enhance the iridescence. It is not known how this pattern of "accidental cracks" was achieved. Another innovation is the use of circular dots as space fillers. On later boxes these dots are monotonously regular in size and spacing. Later boxes also tend to reintroduce the Koryo dynasty technique of using twisted metal wire to define the stem of the vine.
The box shown here is stylistically later than the 15th century example in the Irving Collection (Watt, ibid, no. 154) but obviously earlier that the 17th and 18th century examples in that collection. In fact, it relates most closely to a small assemblage of lacquers in the Tokyo National Museum that are famous for their provenance and secure dating. The group consists of a small desk and writing box which are stored in a large rectangular box of the type usually used as a garment container. These objects originally belonged to Ouchi Yoshitaka (1507-51). The Ouchi were a daimyo family who ruled over the far western part of Honshu from the 14th through the 16th centuries. Yoshitaka is believed to have commissioned the set from a Korean craftsman. The garment box has the same combination of closed and open flowers and acanthus leaves on a loosely scrolling vine, as well as the dots used as space fillers. It also shares with the present example the use of inlaid cloud-like shapes spaced at regular intervals along the edge to create the kind of frame for the vine (see Watt, ibid, p. 309, fig. 34; and Okada Jo, Toyo shitsugeishi no kenkyu [Research on the history of East Asian lacquer], Tokyo: Chuo Koron Bijutsu Shuppan, 1978, p. 334, fig. 89).