.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Such boxes are very rare and no other similar boxes appear to have been published.
The only very similar example is a very nice pair of gold-ground champlevé enamelled gilt-bronze 'melon' boxes sold in our Hong Kong Rooms, 7 July 2003, lot 556.
Melons with their numerous seeds provide the rebus gua die mian mian, 'may you have everlasting generations of sons and grandsons'. As such their forms are rendered with the use of various media such as the bamboo boxes illustrated in The Palace Museum Collection of Elite Carvings, Forbidden City Publish House, 2002, nos.34 and 35; a similarly shaped box and cover of boxwood, Masterpieces of Chinese Miniature Crafts in the National Palace Museum, Gakken, Japan, 1996, no.14; and a lobed melon-shaped gold lacquer box from the Palace Museum collection, Beijing, illustrated in Zhongguo Qiqi Quanji, vol.6, Qing, no.150. Compare also two related ivory carvings, the first a mother-of-pearl embellished ivory box and cover sold in our Hong Kong Rooms, The Imperial Sale, 27 April 1997, lot 31; and a melon-form ivory carving on a matching stand illustrated in Treasures of China - A Collection of Precious Treasures of the Palace Museums of Taipei and Peking, Commercial Press, Taiwan, p.504, no.150.
The only very similar example is a very nice pair of gold-ground champlevé enamelled gilt-bronze 'melon' boxes sold in our Hong Kong Rooms, 7 July 2003, lot 556.
Melons with their numerous seeds provide the rebus gua die mian mian, 'may you have everlasting generations of sons and grandsons'. As such their forms are rendered with the use of various media such as the bamboo boxes illustrated in The Palace Museum Collection of Elite Carvings, Forbidden City Publish House, 2002, nos.34 and 35; a similarly shaped box and cover of boxwood, Masterpieces of Chinese Miniature Crafts in the National Palace Museum, Gakken, Japan, 1996, no.14; and a lobed melon-shaped gold lacquer box from the Palace Museum collection, Beijing, illustrated in Zhongguo Qiqi Quanji, vol.6, Qing, no.150. Compare also two related ivory carvings, the first a mother-of-pearl embellished ivory box and cover sold in our Hong Kong Rooms, The Imperial Sale, 27 April 1997, lot 31; and a melon-form ivory carving on a matching stand illustrated in Treasures of China - A Collection of Precious Treasures of the Palace Museums of Taipei and Peking, Commercial Press, Taiwan, p.504, no.150.