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Lot Essay
The decoration of phoenix and floral scrolls was a popular motif on Ming court arts in many media, since it contains not only a reference to the empress, but to feminine beauty and purity. See for example an imperial cinnabar lacquer bowl stand carved with phoenixes and lotus scrolls and incised with a Yongle mark, formerly from the Sir Percival David and Lady David Collection and Lee Family Collection, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 3 December 2008, lot 2119.
The Hayashibara Museum of Art has a fifteenth century stem bowl with a similar phoenixes and peonies motif against a red ground, illustrated in Famous Objects from the Hayashibara Art Museum, Okyama, 1988, pl. 171. Compare also a similarly decorated silver-bodied bowl with phoenixes and peonies in black lacquer over a red ground, dated to the sixteenth century, from the Muwen Tang Collection and illustrated by Simon Kwan, Chinese Lacquer, The Muwen Tang Collection Series, 20, Hong Kong, 2010, pl. 66.
The Hayashibara Museum of Art has a fifteenth century stem bowl with a similar phoenixes and peonies motif against a red ground, illustrated in Famous Objects from the Hayashibara Art Museum, Okyama, 1988, pl. 171. Compare also a similarly decorated silver-bodied bowl with phoenixes and peonies in black lacquer over a red ground, dated to the sixteenth century, from the Muwen Tang Collection and illustrated by Simon Kwan, Chinese Lacquer, The Muwen Tang Collection Series, 20, Hong Kong, 2010, pl. 66.