A Carved Black and Red Guri Lacquer Box and Cover Ming Dynasty, 16th Century or Later

of square section with straight sides on a sealed bracket-shaped base shaped with four corner feet, carved overall through alternating layers of black and red guri lacquer, the slightly domed cover with four heart-shaped pommels forming a central medallion centred with a dot and framed by six ruyi-shaped pommels and a border of key-fret on the sides, the side walls with five further ruyi-head shaped pommels arranged in two lines, with three pommels above and two pommels flanked by two half-pommels below, all between a border of key-fret at the rim and ‘classic’ scrolls around the base, the interior and base lacquered in brownish-black

2000 Years of Chinese Lacquer. Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong and the Art Gallery, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1993, cat. no. 28. 
Layered Beauty: The Baoyizhai Collection of Chinese Lacquer, Art Museum, Institute of Chinese Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2010, cat. no. 34.

The present box belongs to a well-known group of boxes, made in various sizes and shapes but all decorated with attractive guri design. Amongst boxes of this type, this piece is special because of its slightly domed cover which makes it especially attractive. The carving of the ruyi shaped clouds and the key-frets also display a certain freedom in the design, and are not as precise and regular as that seen on early guri lacquer wares, suggesting that it is likely to be of the late Ming period. Boxes of this type were used for holding seals, probably placed on the scholar’s desk or in his studio.

For the possible inspiration, see a rectangular guri red lacquer covered box, attributed to the Song dynasty, from the Sakamoto collection, sold in these rooms, 8^th October 2013, lot 145, where it is noted that well-proportioned delicate boxes of this type were first developed in southern China in the Song dynasty.

Compare a black lacquered guri box, probably made to contain food, from the collection of E.T. Chow and included in the exhibition One Man’s Taste. Treasures from the Lakeside Pavilion, Galleries of the Baur Collection, Geneva, 1988, cat. no. L25, sold in these rooms, 3^rd May 1994, lot 299; and a rectangular guri three-tiered box, attributed to the 16^th century, sold in our New York rooms, 3^rd December 1992, lot 71, of much larger dimensions as the present piece and probably used as a food container.

Three circular guri boxes of the same period are included in the Hai-wai yi-chen, Chinese Art in Overseas Collections. Lacquerware, Taipei, 1987, pls. 127-9, all from the collection of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

There are expected losses and age cracks to the lacquer commensurate with age but the box and cover are in quite good overall condition. There is black relacquering on the interior of the corners of the box and cover and probably some additional relacquering on the exterior in order to stabilize cracks. There are a few old repaired chips to the guri lacquer including at least three small narrow sections on the cover (the longest 1.2 cm), and a few on the sides of the box. Two larger sections of guri lacquers have flaked off on two sides of the box with the fragments of lacquer kept in a separate envelope, the largest, a triangle of approx. 2 by 1 cm. There are further expected minute chips to the guri lacquer around the base and fritting at the joint but overall the condition remains good.
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