Lot 3500. A white-glazed chrysanthemum-shaped box and cover, Qing dynasty, early 18th century; 6 5/16 in. (16 cm.) diam. Estimate HKD 80,000 - HKD 120,000. Price Realized HKD 137,500. © Christie's Images Ltd 2013 

The slightly domed cover is finely moulded with four concentric rings of chrysanthemum petals radiating from a stylised flowerhead in the centre, and the fluted box is moulded with a single band of petals. It is covered with a white glaze of faint bluish tinge, and the base with a transparent glaze covering an apocryphal Xuande six-character mark, Japanese wood box. 

Provenance: Collection of Reijuin, Chief Abbot of the Daitsuji Temple in Nagahama, Japan
Sold at a dealer's auction in Japan in 1924, no. 90.

Note: Several boxes of the same design and size have been recorded. One was included in Exhibition of Far Eastern Ceramics from the Ataka Collection, Kyoto National Museum, 1978, no. 80. The second box was in the J.M. Hu Collection, sold at Sotheby's New York, 4 June 1985, lot 4. Another very similar box, in the Avery Brundage Collection, is illustrated by Rene-Yvon Lefebvre d'Argence in Chinese Ceramics in the Avery Brundage Collection, 1967, pl. LV1, B.

All the above examples were catalogued as dating to the Xuande period but in the absence of similar excavated examples, it is difficult to date this group to the Xuande period with any degree of certainty.

Christie's. Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art (Including The Su Zhu An Collection of Inkstones), Hong Kong, 27 November 2013