A VERY RARE CARVED YELLOW AND CINNABAR LACQUER 'DRAGON' CIRCULAR TRIPOD TRAY

Details

A VERY RARE CARVED YELLOW AND CINNABAR LACQUER 'DRAGON' CIRCULAR TRIPOD TRAY
JAIJING INCISED AND GILDED SIX-CHARACTER MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1522-1566)

The interior intricately carved through the brownish-yellow lacquer to the red ground with a dense pattern of nine interlaced sinuous kui dragons their bodies dissolving into ruyi scrolls within a circular border, the cavetto decorated with five cartouches, each enclosing a striding dragon, reserved on a diaper-ground, the rounded sides of the exterior carved with ruyi clouds, supported on three evenly spaced cabriole legs, each carved with a stylised taotie mask, the base lacquered black, bearing the reign mark incised along the inner left rim, raised on an elaborately carved openwork wood stand (extremity nicks and minor losses)
13 5/8 in. (34.5 cm.) diam., box

Provenance

Manno Art Museum, no. 1122

Literature

Selected Masterpieces of the Manno Collection, Japan, 1988, pl. 73

Lot Essay

No other example of this unusual interlaced hydra pattern from the Ming period appears to be published. Compare similar treatment of the carving and pattern with a light-brown lacquer dish dated to the early Qing period, illustrated in Carved Lacquer in the Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, 1985, no. 267.

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