An extremely rare 'wucai' lobed box and cover mark and period of Wanli

well potted of upright lobed hexagonal form, the exterior painted in underglaze-blue, iron-red, green, yellow and brown enamels six panels depicting cats sitting on incense burners, while others prowl about and climb bamboo with monkeys and foxes, below swirling clouds above, the rim with a floral  scroll, the flat cover divided into radiating petal panels and painted with flower sprays, with an agate bead knop in the centre, the base inscribed with a six-character mark in underglaze-blue within a double-circle  

Christie's Hong Kong, 3rd November 1998, lot 943.
Christie's London, 16th November 1999, lot 196. 

Wanli polychrome boxes of this shape and decoration are rare, although a closely related box, in the British Museum, is illustrated in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics, London, 2001, p. 334, pl. 11:153, where it is mentioned that an identical box has been acquired by the Shanghai Museum recently. Hall further notes (ibid., p. 334) that this delicate and unusual shape is possibly modelled after a contemporary Ming lacquer or silver-ware box.

Compare also a box of this shape but painted with figures, in the Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 263; and another sold in our London rooms, 27th November 1973, lot 306, and again in these rooms, 28th November 1979, lot 81, and 24th November 1981, lot 117.