LATE YUAN-EARLY MING DYNASTY, 14TH-15TH CENTURY

The inscription on the interior of the foot refers to Yang Mao, a lacquer artisan famous for his carved red lacquerware, who is mentioned in Cao Zhao's 1388 Gegu Yaolun (The Essential Criteria of Antiques) as being a pupil of Yang Hui of Xitang at the end of the Yuan dynasty. See, Sir Percival David, Chinese Connoisseurship, The Ko Ku Yao Lun: The Essential Criteria of Antiquities, London 1971, p. 146. A carved red lacquer zhadou with the mark Yang mao zao incised on the side of the foot, with similarly rendered leaves, is in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing (www.dpm.org.cn/collection/lacquerware/29431.html) A red lacquer tray dating to the Yuan dynasty, also incised with the mark of Yang Mao, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 30 May 2005, lot 1335.

The motif of flowering peach trees on lacquer is extremely rare and no other oval dishes with this motif appear to have been published, although the dish compares well stylistically to other late Yuan and early Ming carved lacquerwares. Compare a red lacquer oval tray carved with leafy grape vines, with a scroll pattern on the reverse that is similar to the present tray, dated to the Yongle period, the Qing Court collection, Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 45 - Lacquer Wares of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, Hong Kong, 2006, Hong Kong, p. 37, no. 23.