An important and finely carved Imperial lacquer 'dragon' box and cover.  Incised mark and period of Yongle beneath a carved Xuande mark. Photo Sotheby's

of large circular shape, the flat top surface deftly carved and incised in various depths of relief through the rich red cinnabar to the ochre ground beneath with a leaping five-clawed dragon, its grinning face framed with long shaggy hair and a pair of long horns while his eyes detailed irises with black lacquer and long eyebrows stare upwards above his outstretched claw reaching towards a 'flaming-pearl', his writhing scaly body twisting and turning amidst a dense scroll of plump ruyi-like clouds, his claws finely incised with detailing of knuckles and hairs clenched beyond his powerful kicking limbs, the straight sides encircled by bands of matching cloud scroll, the interior and base lacquered in a brownish-black, the latter with a carved gilt six-character Xuande mark in a vertical line over an original incised six-character mark of Yongle on the left-hand side of the base; 23.5 cm., 9 1/4 in. Estimation  12,000,000-15,000,000 HKD. Lot vendu: 14,100,000 HKD

PROVENANCE: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 29th October 2001, lot 665.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 31st October 2004, lot 16.

LITTERATURE: Sotheby's Thirty Years in Hong Kong: 1973-2003, Hong Kong, 2003, pl. 402.

NOTE DE CATALOGUE: Yongle lacquerwares carved with the imperial five-clawed dragon are among the finest pieces ever executed in this medium. In lacquer production - like in porcelain manufacture - it is in the Yongle reign that the craftsmanship of the artisans developed to the outstanding precision and graceful harmony that are the characteristics of manufacture for imperial use. The high level of quality achieved and the dauntingly laborious production process of this deeply carved lacquerware are probably the reasons why certain pieces of Yongle lacquer - such as this box - were re-attributed in the Xuande period by superimposing a Xuande reign mark over the original Yongle mark. 

Boxes of this most classic Yongle design are very rare, generally of smaller size and virtually all in Museum collections. One box in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, of almost identical design and size (23.5 cm) (fig. 2) and similarly inscribed with a Xuande mark, was included in the Museum's exhibition Gugong qiqi tezhan, Taipei, 1981, cat. no.17. Four others, ranging from 21.4 cm to 17 cm, respectively, are recorded: two in the Palace Museum, Beijing, published in Gugong Bowuyuan cang diao qi, Beijing, 1985, pls. 52 and 79, one of them again on the cover of  Zhou Cheng, Wenwu zhenbao, vol. 9: Ancient Chinese Lacquer, Taipei, 1994 (and pl. 73); another in the Lindenmuseum, Stuttgart, in Klaus J. Brandt, Chinesische Lackarbeiten, Stuttgart, 1988, pl. 32, from the collection of Fritz Low-Beer; and the fourth in the exhibition catalogue Oriental Lacquer Arts, Tokyo National Museum, 1977, cat.no. 514 (fig. 3).

Of one larger box, decorated with a similar dragon among clouds above waves, only the circular top of the lid is remaining; see R. Soame Jenyns and William Watson, Chinese Art: The Minor Arts, London, 1963, col. pl. 132, from the Garner collection.

Related boxes are also known of much smaller size (14 cm) (fig. 4); see, for example, a piece in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Wang Shixiang, Ancient Chinese Lacquerware, Beijing, 1987, pl. 54; and another in the Hong Kong Museum of Art from the collections of Walter Sedgwick and Frederick Knight, sold in our London rooms, 15th October 1968, lot 33, and again in these rooms, 18th May 1982, lot 45, and included in the exhibition 2,000 Years of Chinese Lacquer, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1993, cat. no. 45, where another example in the Tokyo National Museum is mentioned (p. 96).

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. Hong Kong | 04 avr. 2012 www.sothebys.com