A rare famille-jaune 'phoenix' pen box and cover Qing Dynasty, Kangxi period

of elongated rounded rectangular section, the cover decorated with two phoenix contending a flaming pearl amid billowing clouds, their long feathery tails and facial features finely defined, the sides with a cash diaper ground, all picked out in green, aubergine, and white against a pale yellow ground, the sides of the box similarly decorated to the cover, the interior pierced with three circular and one double mihrab-shaped compartments, the underside and interior glazed white

Compare a related oval Kangxi pen box in famille-jaune enamels in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection. Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Hong Kong, 1989, pl. 102; and another of this shape and palette but decorated with dragon motifs, in the Musée Guimet, Paris, illustrated in Michael Beurdeley and Guy Raindre, Qing Porcelain, London 1987, pl. 75, col.pl. 105.