Lot Essay
This exquisite box and cover was probably used as a treasure box, duobaoge, made for small jade items or jewellery. The white jade openwork plaque depicting a single dragon under a Wan character is particular rare.
Compare also with three other spinach-green jade boxes of different forms, each with a white jade plaque inset to the cover, and all in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Zhongguo yuqi quanji, Qing dynasty, vol. 6, Hebei meishu chubanshe, 1991, pls. 101 (a globular box), 104 (a circular box) and 105 (a circular box carved with borders of petals in high relief to the sides). A spinach-green jade circular box inset with a white jade plaque to the cover was included in The Empress Palace exhibition,
Imperial Life in the Qing Dynasty, Treasures in the Shenyang Palace Museum, and is illustrated in the Catalogue, p. 97.
See a square Qianlong spinach-green and white jade treasure box and cover, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 29 November 2005, lot 1565.
Compare also with three other spinach-green jade boxes of different forms, each with a white jade plaque inset to the cover, and all in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Zhongguo yuqi quanji, Qing dynasty, vol. 6, Hebei meishu chubanshe, 1991, pls. 101 (a globular box), 104 (a circular box) and 105 (a circular box carved with borders of petals in high relief to the sides). A spinach-green jade circular box inset with a white jade plaque to the cover was included in The Empress Palace exhibition,
Imperial Life in the Qing Dynasty, Treasures in the Shenyang Palace Museum, and is illustrated in the Catalogue, p. 97.
See a square Qianlong spinach-green and white jade treasure box and cover, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 29 November 2005, lot 1565.