.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
A related box of this rare melon form decorated with both cloisonné and champlevé enamel from the Juan Jose Amezaga and Maria Dolores Feijoo Collection, was sold by Christie's Paris, 7 December 2007, lot 19. See also another pair of boxes sold by Christie's Hong Kong, 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.
The melon motif also found favour in ceramics and works of art, cf. a blue and white charger decorated on the interior with melons growing on vines, illustrated in Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han and Qing Dynasties, the Chang Foundation, 1990, no. 125; and on a double-gourd glass snuff bottle in the Palace Museum collection, Beijing, illustrated in Biyanhu, Commerical Press, no. 11.
See a comparable pair of boxes sold in Christie's Hong Kong, 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.
The melon motif also found favour in ceramics and works of art, cf. a blue and white charger decorated on the interior with melons growing on vines, illustrated in Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han and Qing Dynasties, the Chang Foundation, 1990, no. 125; and on a double-gourd glass snuff bottle in the Palace Museum collection, Beijing, illustrated in Biyanhu, Commerical Press, no. 11.
See a comparable pair of boxes sold in Christie's Hong Kong, 7 July 2003, lot 556.