Lot Essay
This box appears to be unique. It is most closely related in pattern to a pair of early 18th-century dishes similarly enamelled with a long-tailed bird perched on flowering branches from the Hebblethwaite Collection, sold Sotheby's London, 15 October 1974, lot 245.
Compare another Yongzheng-marked box of this form included in the Exhibition of Ming and Ch'ing Porcelain from the Collection of the T. Y. Chao Family Foundation, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1978, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 100 and sold Sotheby's Hong Kong, 18 November 1986, lot 129. The Chao box is enamelled on the domed cover with butterflies amidst flowers and the Yongzheng mark is enclosed by a single circle, rather than double circles as in the case of the present lot. Cf. a related Yongzheng-marked box densely decorated and enamelled with fruiting peach branches on the domed cover and a band of overlapping pink lotus petals around the exterior of the box, also from the van Slyke Collection, sold Sotheby's New York, 31 May 1989, lot 211.
(US$77,000-100,000)
Compare another Yongzheng-marked box of this form included in the Exhibition of Ming and Ch'ing Porcelain from the Collection of the T. Y. Chao Family Foundation, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1978, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 100 and sold Sotheby's Hong Kong, 18 November 1986, lot 129. The Chao box is enamelled on the domed cover with butterflies amidst flowers and the Yongzheng mark is enclosed by a single circle, rather than double circles as in the case of the present lot. Cf. a related Yongzheng-marked box densely decorated and enamelled with fruiting peach branches on the domed cover and a band of overlapping pink lotus petals around the exterior of the box, also from the van Slyke Collection, sold Sotheby's New York, 31 May 1989, lot 211.
(US$77,000-100,000)