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Lot Essay
The floral designs on early Ming lacquer boxes represent some of the finest decoration found in Chinese decorative repertoire, as evident in the exquisite carving on the present box.
Boxes with similar configuration of a central peony blossom surrounded by further blooms among dense foliage are known, though larger examples in the current size are very rare. The closest comparable example is a Yongle-marked box and cover in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, which is inscribed with a Qianlong imperial poem on the underside of the cover, see Carving the Subtle Radiance of Colors: Treasured Lacquerware in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2008, p. 33, no. 14 (fig. 1). For two smaller examples following this configuration, see a Yongle-marked box and cover in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Gugong Bowuyuan cang diaoqi, Taipei, 1985, no. 31; and another in the Shanghai Museum, which is incised with a Xuande mark over an effaced Yongle mark, illustrated in Zhongguo qiqi quanji, vol. 5, Fuzhou, 1995, no. 22.
Boxes with similar configuration of a central peony blossom surrounded by further blooms among dense foliage are known, though larger examples in the current size are very rare. The closest comparable example is a Yongle-marked box and cover in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, which is inscribed with a Qianlong imperial poem on the underside of the cover, see Carving the Subtle Radiance of Colors: Treasured Lacquerware in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2008, p. 33, no. 14 (fig. 1). For two smaller examples following this configuration, see a Yongle-marked box and cover in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Gugong Bowuyuan cang diaoqi, Taipei, 1985, no. 31; and another in the Shanghai Museum, which is incised with a Xuande mark over an effaced Yongle mark, illustrated in Zhongguo qiqi quanji, vol. 5, Fuzhou, 1995, no. 22.