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Lot Essay
This box appears to be unique with no other comparable examples of this form and decoration published. A late Ming carved cinnabar lacquer picnic or travelling box of much more conventional smaller rectangular form in the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing, is published by Wang Shixiang, Zhongguo Gudai Qiqi, Beijing, 1987, no. 56.
The box is likely to have been an Imperial commission for Imperial outdoor travel and leisure activities. A number of paintings in the Imperial collections depict the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors using picnic boxes of this type on excursions. The Yongzheng emperor is shown seated beside a tiered black lacquer or mother-of-pearl inlaid lacquer picnic box in an anonymous painting in the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing illustrated in Paintings by the Court Artists of the Qing Court, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1996, pp. 124-125, no. 19. A picnic box, possibly cinnabar lacquer, of comparable form and large size to the present example is depicted on a barge accompanying the Qianlong Emperor in the Ninth Scroll of Emperor Qianlong's Tour of Southern China, Qianlong Nan Xun Tu, by Xu Yang included in the Macau Museum of Art Exhibition The Life of Emperor Qianlong, Macau, 2002, no. 110.
A gilt black lacquer portable tea-ceremony chest of similar construction in the Palace Museum Beijing is illustrated in Lacquer Wares of the Qing Dynasty, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 2006, p. 174, no. 129.
For a discussion of tiered handled boxes, tihe and their function, see Wang Shixiang, Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture, Vol I: Text, Hong Kong, 1990, p. 95 where the author notes that few examples of tihe have survived due to their fragility and the fact that larger examples such as the present box were usually made of softwood. Surviving examples are mostly small boxes in zitan or huanghuali as well as a few inlaid examples.
The box is likely to have been an Imperial commission for Imperial outdoor travel and leisure activities. A number of paintings in the Imperial collections depict the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors using picnic boxes of this type on excursions. The Yongzheng emperor is shown seated beside a tiered black lacquer or mother-of-pearl inlaid lacquer picnic box in an anonymous painting in the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing illustrated in Paintings by the Court Artists of the Qing Court, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1996, pp. 124-125, no. 19. A picnic box, possibly cinnabar lacquer, of comparable form and large size to the present example is depicted on a barge accompanying the Qianlong Emperor in the Ninth Scroll of Emperor Qianlong's Tour of Southern China, Qianlong Nan Xun Tu, by Xu Yang included in the Macau Museum of Art Exhibition The Life of Emperor Qianlong, Macau, 2002, no. 110.
A gilt black lacquer portable tea-ceremony chest of similar construction in the Palace Museum Beijing is illustrated in Lacquer Wares of the Qing Dynasty, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 2006, p. 174, no. 129.
For a discussion of tiered handled boxes, tihe and their function, see Wang Shixiang, Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture, Vol I: Text, Hong Kong, 1990, p. 95 where the author notes that few examples of tihe have survived due to their fragility and the fact that larger examples such as the present box were usually made of softwood. Surviving examples are mostly small boxes in zitan or huanghuali as well as a few inlaid examples.