A rare gilt-decorated blue and white 'Maoqindian' seal box and cover, Seal mark and period of Jiaqing. Estimate 3,200,000 — 4,200,000 (373,501 - 490,220 EUR). Photo Sotheby's

of compressed circular form, the shallow domed cover delicately painted in gilt with two leaping dragons surrounded by iron-red flames, confronted around a gilt cartouche with the hall name Maoqindian (Palace of Great Diligence) in seal script, all reserved on a finely pencilled underglaze-blue ground of billowing clouds, the box similarly decorated, the white interior left undecorated, the inner rims and footring gilded, the base inscribed with a six-character reign mark in underglaze blue - 23.2 cm., 9 1/8  in.

Notes: Maoqindian, built in the 14th year of the Jiajing period (corresponding to 1535), is located to the west of Qianqinggong (Palace of Heavenly Purity) in the Forbidden City. It is a historically prominent place in the Palace, where the Emperor reviewed the memorials, focused on his study and enjoyed his collections. Officials were also assigned to work at the hall on important projects; the third sections of the Shiqu baoji [Shiqu Collection of Paintings and Calligraphy] and Midian zhulin [Pearls in the Private Halls], for instances, were completed within Maoqindian during the Jiaqing period. The hall was also designated to house classics, historical records as well as implements relating to study purposes, such as seals and seal paste. According to court records, paintings, calligraphy and works of art were sent to the hall for inscriptions and incisions of poems. During the Qing dynasty, calligraphy and paintings after authentication would be sent to Maoqindian for seal impressions. Outstanding examples bearing the seal Maoqindian jianding zhang (‘Seal of Connoisseurship at the Hall of Great Diligence’) include Timely Clearing After Snowfall by Wang Xizhi (303-361), now in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and the Southern Song (1127-1279) rubbing of the Model Calligraphy of the Chunhua Archive, preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing.

Some of the imperial seals were kept in Maoqindian. Shen Chu (1735-99), a court official during the Qianlong period, recorded in the fourth chapter of Xiqing biji [Notes of Xiqing] that “all bronze, jade and stone imperial seals are kept in Maoqindian. Whenever calligraphy and paintings with imperial handwriting were done, the relevant ministers would choose the appropriate seals and stamp them on the works”. According to Guochao gongshi xubian [Court History, Second Series], “The Catalogue of the Jiaqing imperial seals records more than nine hundred seals preserved in Maoqindian”. The present seal paste box and cover is very likely to have been kept in Maoqindian so that the emperor could order the selected seals to be impressed immediately after he enjoyed and inscribed on the artworks.

The current Maoqindian-marked seal paste box and cover is very rare and only a few comparable examples are known. A box and cover from the Qing court collection still preserved with the residual seal paste, now in the collection of Palace Museum, Beijing is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Scholar’s Objects, Hong Kong, 2009, pl. 288. Apart from the present box, there are only six other examples that have ever appeared at auction. One box, exhibited inAnimal in Chinese Art, Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1968, cat. no. 97, was sold twice in our New York rooms, 2nd/3rd December 1974, lot 480 and 23rd October 1976, lot 322, and recently sold again in Beijing Poly, 6th December 2011, lot 4983. Two others were sold in these rooms, 13th December 1977, lot 539 and 8th November 1982, lot 163 respectively, and another in Christie’s Hong Kong 13th January 1987, lot 519. Another box, formerly in the collection of J.M. Hu (1910-93), was sold in our New York rooms, 4th June 1985, lot 77. The last example, formerly in the collection of Abigail Adams, a descendant of the former American President John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), was sold at Christie’s New York, 29th March 2006, lot 445.

Compare also a Jiaqing seal box and cover of similar form, but without the inscription Maoqindian and decorated with green and lilac enamelled dragons, in the collection of Tianjin Municipal Museum and published in Porcelains from the Tianjin Municipal Museum, Hong Kong, 1993, pls. 180-181.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 07 oct. 2015, 02:30 PM