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Lot Essay
Maoqindian is the name of a hall within the Qianqing Palace in the Forbidden City constructed in the 14th year of the Jiajing period (1535). Maoqindian was one of the Emperor’s main studies during the Qianlong and Jiaqing periods, where the Emperors read palace memorials and appreciated calligraphy and paintings. Thus, many of the Imperial seals were kept at Maoqindian for direct access. The three-clawed dragons on the present box suggest that the seal box was made during the first four years of the Jiaqing period when his father, the Emperor Qianlong, reigned as the Emperor Emeritus.
A few other seal paste boxes and covers of this type are known. One is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, which still has traces of cinnabar seal paste inside the box, included in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Small Refined Articles of the Study, Hong Kong, 2009, no. 288; one sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 13 January 1987, lot 519; one from the collection of Abigail Adams, sold at Christie’s New York, 29 March 2006, lot 445, now in the Studio of Measure, exhibited in No Doubts, Christie’s Shanghai, 2014, see Catalogue no. 35; one sold at Sotheby’s New York, 4 June, 1985, lot 77, and the pair to it from the Yidetang Collection, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 May 2021, lot 2947; and one from the Newark Museum, sold at Sotheby’s New York, 21 March 2024, lot 116.
Compare also with a related Jiaqing-marked seal paste box and cover, with dragons enamelled in green and aubergine, pursuing a flaming pearl in the centre of the cover, published in Porcelains from the Tianjin Municipal Museum, Hong Kong, 1993, nos. 180 and 181.
A few other seal paste boxes and covers of this type are known. One is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, which still has traces of cinnabar seal paste inside the box, included in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Small Refined Articles of the Study, Hong Kong, 2009, no. 288; one sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 13 January 1987, lot 519; one from the collection of Abigail Adams, sold at Christie’s New York, 29 March 2006, lot 445, now in the Studio of Measure, exhibited in No Doubts, Christie’s Shanghai, 2014, see Catalogue no. 35; one sold at Sotheby’s New York, 4 June, 1985, lot 77, and the pair to it from the Yidetang Collection, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 May 2021, lot 2947; and one from the Newark Museum, sold at Sotheby’s New York, 21 March 2024, lot 116.
Compare also with a related Jiaqing-marked seal paste box and cover, with dragons enamelled in green and aubergine, pursuing a flaming pearl in the centre of the cover, published in Porcelains from the Tianjin Municipal Museum, Hong Kong, 1993, nos. 180 and 181.