Lot 2639. A very rare carved cinnabar lacquer circular box and cover, Ming dynasty, Hongwu period (1368-1398); 33 cm., 13 in. Estimate 4,000,000—6,000,000 HKD. Lot Sold 4,820,000 HKD. Courtesy Sotheby's 2010.

the cover finely carved with a medallion enclosing a landscape scene, depicting a scholar and attendant standing on a fenced terrace over-looking a pavilion and garden filled with trees issuing from rockwork, all below swirling ruyi-shaped cloud scrolls, the angled shoulder deeply carved with a leafy composite floral scroll of gardenia, lotus, prunus, chrysanthemum, pomegranate, camellia, peony and rose deeply carved to the brown layer, above a leafy scroll at the straight side, the box similarly carved with lotus and camellia, supported on a straight foot with keyfret band, the interior and base lacquered black.

Provenance: Oriental Art Gallery, London.

Note: The magnificent box is an extremely rare example of the finest early Ming lacquer carving. Although similar figure scenes are known from boxes of the Yongle and Xuande periods, the present piece displays a more lively, individualistic and somewhat unorthodox way of representation that differs from the more anonymous style of those periods, of which it would seem to represent a prototype.

Carved lacquer had its heyday in the early Ming period, when carving became gradually smoother and more regular, motifs more stylised and designs more scrupulously organized. Unfortunately little evidence for dating is available other than Yongle and Xuande reign marks which, however, raise questions themselves since the latter often appear superimposed on the former, and by far not all marks on lacquer ware are original, since bases were often re-lacquered. Very little is known about the imperial lacquer production under the Hongwu Emperor, although a few pieces have been attributed to that reign. And although the rare carved lacquer pieces of the late Song and Yuan period are again better known, they are less uniform in style. Compared to the soft and subtle perfection of the Yongle and Xuande periods, lacquer of the Yuan dynasty displays a bolder, unmannered approach that has not yet become standardized. The present box seems stylistically to embody a state of lacquer carving between these two periods, in the late 14th century.

The figure scene on top of the cover with its idealized garden setting is remarkable for its careful rendering of the architecture that conveys a true sense of space inside the pavilion. The sensitive depiction of a wide range of different trees with varied leaves lend a liveliness to the composition,  like in Chinese landscape painting it is typically achieved through the use of different brushstrokes. The utter simplification of some leaves, like the rows of triangles on one of the bushes in the very foreground, and the stylisation of the rocks nearby is very similarly found on the cover of a Yuan dynasty box discovered in the Ren Family tombs in Qingpu county, Shanghai, one of which is dated equivalent to 1351; see Zhongguo qiqi quanji [Complete series on Chinese lacquer], vol. 4, Fuzhou, 1998, pl. 155. An unusual attention to detail can also be seen in the differentiation between natural rockwork and decorative garden rocks on the right-hand side, or the addition of small lotus flowers and leaves to the pond.

The composite flower borders around top and bottom are similarly marked by an individual treatment of the respective blooms, buds and leaves that differs from the characteristic stylisation of Yongle and Xuande lacquer carving, where the lotus, for example, is seldom accompanied by naturalistic leaves. The various elements of these scrolls are clearly set apart from each other, with much blank space carved away inbetween – another characteristic of Yuan lacquer ware.

Unique on this box are the foliate scroll borders around the sides, which are not seen on other examples. They are much more elaborate than the usual guri (tixi) style scrolls often used on the reverse of dishes, and form an independent stylistic feature. They are most immediately reminiscent of scrollwork reserved on copper-red borders of Hongwu porcelains, for example, on various bottles and dishes in Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain and Underglazed Red (I), Shanghai, 2000, pls, 197-9, 206, 223.

With this feature, the box seems to echo an earlier prototype, a polychrome lacquer box attributed to the Southern Song period in the Hayashibara Art Museum, Okayama, included in the exhibition So Gen no Bi/ The Colors and Forms of Song and Yuan China, Nezu Institute of Fine Arts, Tokyo,  2004, cat. no. 76. Another rare foliate scroll seen on a stemcup attributed to the 15th century, clearly shows a more evolved, later version of this motif; see the exhibition 2000 Years of Chinese Lacquer, Art Gallery, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1993, cat. no. 49.

Precisely because the style of this box displays the distinct hand of an individual lacquer carver, closely comparable pieces are difficult to find. It can only be related to other unique examples in spirit, for example, to a lobed dish in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, included in the Museum's exhibition East Asian Lacquer. The Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, New York, 1991, cat. no. 23, which shares some of its features, but has been attributed to the Yuan dynasty.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, 08 Oct 10 11:00 AM, Hong Kong