A WELL-CARVED CINNABAR LACQUER KANG CABINET

Details

A WELL-CARVED CINNABAR LACQUER KANG CABINET
QING DYNASTY, 18TH CENTURY

The miniature cabinet with a smaller compartment on top and a larger one below opening to reveal a pair of small drawers, the four doors finely carved with landscape scenes, two with scholars in pavilions and gathered outdoors in various leisurely pursuits, and the other two with toiling peasants carrying tools and bundles of wood, all in lakeside settings, surrounded with pine and wutong trees and rocky mountains in the background, each door framed with key-fret and mounted with gilt-metal handles and hinges cast with scrollwork, all above a shallow drawer carved with a pair of cranes and a pair of deer in landscape, the sides and top with diaper pattern, raised on four gilt-metal feet
21 7/8 in. (55.5 cm.) high

Provenance

A Japanese collection

Lot Essay

Miniature cabinets of this type were made for display on a kang which served as a seat in the day and a bed at night. A cabinet of this type carved with figures in landscape is illustrated in Carved Lacquer in the Collection of the Palace Museum, 1985, pl. 297; while another with similar scenes, from the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, was included in the Special Exhibition of Palace Lacquer Objects, Taiwan, 1981, Catalogue no. 65.

More from Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art

View All