A RARE QIANGJIN-DECORATED RED-LACQUERED RECTANGULAR SUTRA BOX AND COVER

YONGLE PERIOD (1403-1425)

Details

A RARE QIANGJIN-DECORATED RED-LACQUERED RECTANGULAR SUTRA BOX AND COVER
YONGLE PERIOD (1403-1425)
The box is decorated to the sides with finely incised and gilt spiralling leafy branches extending from rockwork, bearing lotus buds and blooms, each flower-head supporting one of the Eight Buddhist Emblems. The canted edge and sides of the cover are further decorated with bands enclosing classic scrolls and ruyi-shaped clouds. The front of the box and cover is attached with a double-florette plaque and a rectangular lockplate.
16 in. (40.6 cm.) wide, fitted box

Provenance

Acquired in Kathmandu in 1998

Brought to you by

Ruben Lien

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Lot Essay

A nearly identical sutra box with minor stylistic differences in the secondary bands is included in the Christopher Bruckner 1998 exhibition catalogue Chinese Imperial Patronage: Treasures from Temples and Palaces, London, no. 3. Compare with a closely related sutra box decorated with dragons in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, included in the exhibition Defining Yongle: Imperial Art in Early Fifteenth Century, New York, 2005, Catalogue, Plate. 21, which shares a very similar band of clouds on the sides of the cover and an almost identical brass double-florette plate with the current box, though the rectangular fitting underneath is incised with dragon as opposed to a lotus.

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