A RARE SMALL BAMBOO-VENEER SQUARE BOX AND COVER

QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)

Details

A RARE SMALL BAMBOO-VENEER SQUARE BOX AND COVER
QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)
With indented corners, finely carved through a top layer of bamboo skin to reveal a honey-color ground, the top with a central stylized foliate motif and conjoined scroll spandrels at the corners above a narrow band of petal lappets on the canted shoulder, the sides of the cover with S-scrolls and the sides of the box with angular scrolls conjoined in the center of each side, with a shallow foot of conforming outline surrounding the slightly countersunk base
3½ in. (9 cm.) square

Provenance

Ruth Dreyfus Collection, 1970.

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Lot Essay

Bamboo veneer (zhu huang) pieces of this type, with fine intricate carving in shallow relief to create a two-color effect are very rare, and tend to be of Imperial quality. Boxes of different shapes and sizes carved in the same technique in the Qing Court Collection are illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 44 - Bamboo, Wood, Ivory and Rhinoceros Horn Carvings, Hong Kong, 2002, pp. 79-81, nos. 72-4. See, also, the small ruyi-shaped box illustrated by Simon Kwan, Ming and Qing Bamboo, University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, 2000, p. 438, no. 146.

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