AN EXTREMELY RARE POLYCHROME LACQUER FLORAL-LOBED STACKED BOX AND STAND

QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)

Details

AN EXTREMELY RARE POLYCHROME LACQUER FLORAL-LOBED STACKED BOX AND STAND
QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)
The cinnabar lacquer cover with lobed sides is finely carved on the upper-surface with two scholars seated in a riverscape scene with two attendants among bamboo, pine and rockwork, the vertical sides decorated with five rectangular cartouches, each containing objects of antiquity against a diaper-ground. The cover is fitted over a two-tier box and cover of conforming floral-lobed shape decorated with polychrome lacquer and executed in the tianqi method. The top tier accomodates a single dish also of conforming shape and the second tier contains five fitted boxes enclosing a central circular box, exquisitely detailed with ruyi, all supported on a separate cinnabar lacquer stand. The upper surface of the stand is incised with a large floral bloom radiating tendrils, the sides carved with a honeycomb pattern and raised on five cabriole legs.
7 1/4 in. (18.5 cm.) across

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Lot Essay

The closest comparison of this sumptuous arrangement of 'boxes within a box' is the pair of musical-stone shaped boxes in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing. Contained within each of the Palace Museum boxes are four similarly lacquered smaller containers; both sets of boxes were included in the exhibition, Views of Antiquity in the Qing Imperial Palace, Macao Museum of Art, 2006, and illustrated in the Catalogue, p. 326, no. 116. A comparable example of this same penta-lobe shaped box enclosing an inner set of two-tiered boxes, but seemingly lacking the compartmental boxes, is illustrated in Gugong Bowuyuan Cang Diaoqi, 'Carved Lacquer in the Collection of the Palace Museum', 1985, no. 298.

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