A RARE SMALL CARVED CINNABAR LACQUER 'SCHOLAR' DISH
A RARE SMALL CARVED CINNABAR LACQUER 'SCHOLAR' DISH

YUAN DYNASTY (1279-1368)

Details
A RARE SMALL CARVED CINNABAR LACQUER 'SCHOLAR' DISH
YUAN DYNASTY (1279-1368)
The circular dish is carved through layers of cinnabar lacquer with a hexafoil medallion depicting a landscape scene with a scholar accompanied by attendant under a wutong tree, appreciating the waterfall in the distance. The cavetto is decorated with composite flower sprays and leaves, and the rim shallowly carved with eight-pointed star-diaper. The reverse side is carved with xiangcao scrolls while the base is applied with black lacquer.
6 7/8 in. (17.5 cm.) diam., box
Provenance
Edward T. Chow Collection
Sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 3rd and 4th May 1994, lot 291
Exhibited
Baur Collection Galleries, Exhibition of One Man's Taste, Treasures from the Lakeside Pavillion, Geneva, 1988-1989, illsutrated in the Catalogue, no. L5
Hong Kong Museum of Art, Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth: Gems of Antiquities Collections in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2004, Catalogue, no. 33

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Lot Essay

The present dish has a particularly unusual decorative element: the wavy diaper ground within the landscape medallion. The free-flowing lines of this particular diaper ground are very different to those seen on later wares, and reflect a particular fourtheenth century style when artists had more freedom in the depiction of diaper grounds. Sir Harry Garner mentions in his book Chinese Lacquer, London, 1979, p. 111 that after the fourteenth century, diaper grounds on Chinese carved lacquer became highly standardised and strictly conformed to three formal patterns representing land, water and air.

Very few examples survive today with grounds which exhibit the creativity of lacquer artists as on the current dish. One close example is a small lacquer box excavated from Qingpu Xian in Jiangsu province and dated to around 1351. The box depicts a landscape scene very similar to the current dish, and Sir Garner notes that the 'eddying form' of the water diaper on this box is of special interest for such forms did not persist in the later pieces, ibid.

Compare also two Yuan octagonal trays of similar size and similarly decorated with landscapes and floral motifs on the sides. One from the Palace Museum, Beijing (17.8 cm. diam.) is illustrated in Lacquer Wares of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 2006, pl. 1; the other was included in the exhibition 2000 Years of Chinese Lacquer, Hong Kong, 1993, Catalogue, no. 36.
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