De section carrée, le bouton est formé par un puissant dragon dont les deux cornes sont finement sculptées. Il est représenté couché, les pattes repliées sous son corps laissant apparaitre ses cinq griffes tranchantes. Sa gueule féroce aux yeux globuleux dégage une expression solennelle, les écailles et la crinière finement incisées. La face porte une inscription à quatre caractères sculptée avec grande précision: 'Wanli Zhibao', le 'trésor de Wanli'. 

Property from a French noble family.

Note: The present seal carved in white ivory and once owned by the emperor Wanli is exceptionally rare. The imposing dragon covered by the elaborate scales is vividly rendered by the meticulous carver towards the muscles of its body, the sharpness of its claws and the solemn expression of its face. The seal is crisply carved with Wanli Zhibao, ‘treasure of Wanli’, which indicates that it was made for the emperor Wanli’s official use. There are very few records on the imperial seals of the Ming emperors and this present seal seems to be the unique known example of the official seal bearing the name of the emperor Wanli. 

Compare to an imperial ivory ‘zisun bao zhi’ seal surmounted by a crouching dragon, dated Yongle period, offered in Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 4 April 2012. See another ivory seal decorated with a dragon, attributed to the Wanli reign (1573-1620), from the Sir Percival and Lady David collection, included in the Oriental Ceramics Society exhibition The Arts of the Ming Dynasty, The Arts Council Gallery, London, 1957, cat. no. 363, sold in Sotheby’s London, 14th December 1976, lot 206. Also compare to a magnificent jade square seal from the collection of the Tibet Museum of Lhasa, with very similarly modelled crouching dragon final, dated Yuan dynasty, carved with ‘Tongling shijiao DaYuan guoshi zhiyin’, ‘the seal of the State Tutor of the great Yuan dynasty and the leader of the Buddhist faith’. 

A C14 test (C 143146A, Re.S.Artes) presented on 14 March 2018 is available on request and it attests the dating of the ivory most probably between 1316 and 1421.