A Cinnabar Lacquer Brush Handle and Cover Ming Dynasty, Jiajing period

the long cylindrical handle carved in relief with a continuous figural landscape scene against a floral diaper ground, between pendant leaves, the brush end encircled with a keyfret band, the terminal with a keyfret below a stylised border, the cover carved with a thirteen character inscription between keyfret borders, set on a floral diaper ground, the end decorated with a central floret, the top with a lingzhi sprig

Two carved cinnabar lacquer brush-holders were included in the exhibition Ming Lacquer, Bluett and Sons, London, 1060, cat.nos. 20 and 21; another brush handle and cover carved with figures in landscape was included in the exhibition 2000 Years of Chinese Lacquer, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1993, cat.no. 52; and a fourth example decorated with Daoist figures in landscape, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is illustrated in James C.Y. Watt and Barbara Brennan Ford, East Asian Lacquer. The Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, New York, 1991, pl. 30.

Compare also four carved cinnabar lacquer brush handles and covers, all attributed to the Ming dynasty, in the Tokugawa Art Museum collection, published in Karamono. Imported Lacquerwork – Chinese, Korean and Ryukyuan (Okinawa), Nagoya, 1997, pls. 70-73.