Lot 334
334
A RARE EARLY BLACK LACQUER OCTAGONAL BOX AND COVER, inset on the flat top in mother-of-pearl with two elegantly attired ladies cautiously peeping from the doorway of a pavilion at servants with garden implements and a dog in the foreground beside pine, sterculia, rockwork and trellis fencing, the pavilion with architectural features including panels of a hare, birds in flight and waves divided by columns of lotus and foliage, one roof surmounted by a tile modelled as a fish, the sides with scrolling foliage enclosing flower-heads of several varieties divided by panels of diaper on the vertical rims and the short foot with a simple floral meander, (old restoration) 15th Century

Details
A RARE EARLY BLACK LACQUER OCTAGONAL BOX AND COVER, inset on the flat top in mother-of-pearl with two elegantly attired ladies cautiously peeping from the doorway of a pavilion at servants with garden implements and a dog in the foreground beside pine, sterculia, rockwork and trellis fencing, the pavilion with architectural features including panels of a hare, birds in flight and waves divided by columns of lotus and foliage, one roof surmounted by a tile modelled as a fish, the sides with scrolling foliage enclosing flower-heads of several varieties divided by panels of diaper on the vertical rims and the short foot with a simple floral meander, (old restoration) 15th Century
25cm. wide, old wood box
Literature
Garner, op.cit., pp. 218 and 220, pl. 163 and 164, where the possible relation of this box to the 'Tatu fragment' is discussed and where this and others of the same group are described as displaying 'exceptionally high craftmanship, hardly surpassed in any of the decorative arts of China'; and Hong Kong OCS, Bulletin 3, 1977-78, illustrations 16, 17 and 18
Exhibited
British Museum, October-December, 1973, pl. 119

Lot Essay

Cf. the rectangular box illustrated by Nishioka, Chugoku no Raden Tokyo National Museum, March 1981, pl 25 on which the main design is almost identical to this and which he dates to the 14th Century. See also Kuwayama, Far Eastern Lacquer, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1982, p. 31, where this group is discussed as having traditional narratives, such as the Lanting Garden.

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