The large plate in the shape of a lotus flower with an eightfolded rim. In the center a large peony flower with a wide border of dense scrolls with the Eight Buddhist Treasures placed each above a lotus The background of the singer with a fine pattern of chess board. The lip adorned with a leiwen border, the rim with more spiral motifs intertwined with rings. On the outside the lip with a ruyi border with lotus Scrolls and spear shaped leafs. At the foot another leiwen border. Underneath lacquered black and engraved with a six part Qianlong mark, rubbed with gold and from the period. Condition B. Damaged and partly restored.   

Provenance : -Collection Sonderhoff, acquired locally.

Literature: -Palace Museum Taiwan (Pb.):.. Masterpieces of Chinese Carved Lacquer Ware The National Palace Museum in Taiwan, the Compare Nr of the 1971. 31. 

Note: Dr. jur. Roland Sonderhoff was born in 1897 in Harburg. From 1916 he studied law in Munich and Jena, where he also received his doctorate early in 1920. In Hamburg, he worked briefly in the civil service at the court and began in the same year with the training at the Norddeutsche Bank. After three years he was appointed authorized officer and led the legal department from 1925 to 1929. When in 1927/28 the takeover of Norddeutsche Bank by a larger company with a well-equipped legal department became apparent, Sonderhoff saw for a new field of activity in his wide circle of acquaintances. Among others, he got in contact with the lawyer Dr. Karl Vogt via the Hamburg-based representative of the Yokohama Specie Bank Sonoda Saburo. Vogt was looking for a German lawyer for his law office, he had established 1912 in Japan. As early as 1929, March 1st Sonderhoff joined the office in Tokyo as an employee. At the beginning of 1932 he became a partner and from now on the office was run as Drs. K. Vogt and R. Sonderhoff. Through his studies of Japanese language and writing Sonderhoff gained a strong interest in Asian art and used his travels to acquire numerous works of art. In China, he visited Beijing, but also the city of Harbin, where Vogt maintained an office to serve the patent and trademark interests of German clients in Mandchukuo. Already in his time in Hamburg, Sonderhoff had come to know the bookseller Erna Kracht. In 1923 she had co-founded the Hamburger Buecherstube Felix Jud & Co. in the Colonnaden as a partner. 1933 she followed Sonderhoff to Japan, where soon their two children Ursula and Hartwig were born. After the end of the war, most Germans living in Japan were expelled and the Sonderhoff family also had to travel to Germany with small luggage. The collection of artworks remained with trusted friends in Japan, who later returned them one after the other. Sonderhoff was exonerated and moved with his family to Hamburg. In 1952 Sonderhoff returned to Japan with the Japanese visa No. 1 to resume the operations of the lawyers office. Since his arrival in East Asia, Dr. Roland Sonderhoff bought bronzes, porcelains, scroll paintings, screens and other art - he assembled an important collection. In the period after 1952 it was supplemented only with a few more pieces in Hong Kong and Tokyo until about 1976. Sonderhoff meticulously documented his purchases in detailed descriptions with date, location and provenance as well as the prices paid. The documentation shows his broad interests. In addition to the East Asian works of art he also collected ceramics from Peru, Persian-Iranian objects, Khmer figures, Buddha from Thailand and works of art from Tibet. Unfortunately only the second volume of the records has been found so far. In this identical stickers with printed four-digit numbers are used as on the undersides of the porcelain. Additional information about the pieces could be found in a list written by Dr. Ursula Lienert, b. Sonderhoff after the handwritten notes of her father and supplemented by her immense expertise. Dr. Lienert worked in the Museum of East Asian Art in Berlin and later as a curator in the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg. Added to the objects are, as far as available, information sheets typed by the collector or his daughter. Also photos from the period and later. The photo above shows the chimney room of the villa in Hamburg, Alsterkamp 19, where the family lived from 1970 to 1981 at least six months a year.