A CINNABAR LACQUER 'LION AND PEONY' PEN MING DYNASTY, 16TH CENTURY

the slender tubular body deeply carved with a lion frollicking amidst peonies reserved on a diaper ground, the head of the pen carved with a small floret and the tip fitted with animal hair forming the brush, the slightly wider cover carved with matching decoration

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. See another example sold in these room 10th April 2006, lot 1712.