The slightly raised center of the domed cover painted with three cranes in flight amidst cruciform clouds, above a frieze of similar design which is repeated on the sides of the box, all within double line borders.

Exhibited: City of Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, England, no. 46.
Helsinki, 1956, no. 196.

Note: This rare box and cover is comparable to one of smaller size (12.8 cm. diam.), also with a Jiajing mark, but with only one crane amidst clouds on the cover, illustrated by R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Gulexuan Collection, Germany, 2003, pp. 94-5, no. 64. The author mentions a larger box and cover with similar design, but with three cranes amidst clouds on the cover, in the collection of I. Traugott, Stockholm, illustrated by L. Reidemeister, Ming-Porzellane in Schwedischen Sammlungen, Berlin and Leipzig, 1935, pl. 18c, which may possibly be the present box and cover, or one very like it.