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Lot Essay
The powerful dragon on the current box is depicted pursuing the flaming pearl amongst dense and complex clouds. The clouds themselves are auspicious symbols, in part because they provide a rebus for good fortune. It is also significant that clouds, such as the examples on this box, are often shaped like lingzhi fungus of immortality, and so emphasise a wish for long life. Particularly in an imperial context, the clouds also recall the shape of the head of a ruyi sceptre, suggesting the hope for ‘everything as you wish it’.
Very few Yongle-Xuande laquer boxes of this single dragon design are known, five of which are preserved today in museums, with a size varying from 17 cm to 23.5 cm : one in the National Palace Museum of Taipei (gu-qi-000373-N000000000) ; two in the Palace Museum of Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, vol. 45 : Lacquer Wares of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, Hong Kong, 2002, cat. 47 and 56, pp. 68-69 and 79 ; one in the Lindenmuseum, Stuttgart, published in Klaus J. Brandt, Chinesische Lackarbeiten, Stuttgart, 1988, pl. 32, from the collection of Fritz Low-Beer and one in the Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, published in Oriental Lacquer Arts : special exhibition, Tokyo, Tokyo Kokuritsu Habutsukan, 1977, cat. 514. See a slightly larger dragon box (23.5 cm diameter), bearing a Yongle mark, sold in Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 4 April 2012, lot 3200. Another Yongle 'dragon' box, from the Emil Hultmark collection, was sold in Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 28 November 2018, lot 2.
Very few Yongle-Xuande laquer boxes of this single dragon design are known, five of which are preserved today in museums, with a size varying from 17 cm to 23.5 cm : one in the National Palace Museum of Taipei (gu-qi-000373-N000000000) ; two in the Palace Museum of Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, vol. 45 : Lacquer Wares of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, Hong Kong, 2002, cat. 47 and 56, pp. 68-69 and 79 ; one in the Lindenmuseum, Stuttgart, published in Klaus J. Brandt, Chinesische Lackarbeiten, Stuttgart, 1988, pl. 32, from the collection of Fritz Low-Beer and one in the Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, published in Oriental Lacquer Arts : special exhibition, Tokyo, Tokyo Kokuritsu Habutsukan, 1977, cat. 514. See a slightly larger dragon box (23.5 cm diameter), bearing a Yongle mark, sold in Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 4 April 2012, lot 3200. Another Yongle 'dragon' box, from the Emil Hultmark collection, was sold in Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 28 November 2018, lot 2.