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Lot Essay
Such boxes were sometimes used as incense boxes. A slightly larger box similarly lobed, and including calligraphy written in similar style as part of its decoration, is in the collection of the Idemitsu Museum, Tokyo, and published in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, no. 873. Both these boxes are of the type of Chinese blue and white porcelain known as 'shonzui' and made for Japanese patrons towards the end of the Ming period. Such pieces were popular for use in the Japanese tea ceremony.
The form of such boxes developed from earlier examples formed as fruit and flowers and using the stalk as a finial for the cover, such as the 10th century green-glazed box in the British Museum, illustrated in Oriental ceramics, The World's great Collections, vol. 5, 1981, fig. 45.
The form of such boxes developed from earlier examples formed as fruit and flowers and using the stalk as a finial for the cover, such as the 10th century green-glazed box in the British Museum, illustrated in Oriental ceramics, The World's great Collections, vol. 5, 1981, fig. 45.