YONGLE PERIOD (1403-1425)

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.