A cinnabar 'tixi' lacquer box and cover, Signed Yang Mao, Yuan dynasty | 元 朱面剔犀卷草紋蓋盒 《楊茂造》款

The carved design on the current box, known as tixi or the Japanese term, guri (curves and circles), was a pattern established towards the end of the Song dynasty. The scrolling foliage design on the current box, referred to as juancao (scrolling grass) or xiangcao (fragrant grass), first appeared on Song dynasty lacquerwares and enjoyed considerable popularity well into the Yuan dynasty.

On the base, the present box bears the needle-engraved signature Yang Mao zao (‘made by Yang Mao’). Yang Mao is known from Gegu yaolun [The essential criteria of antiquities] by Cao Zhao of 1388, where he and Zhang Cheng, both of Xitang in Jiaxing district, Zhejiang province, southwest of modern Shanghai, are mentioned as carvers of red lacquer who became famous at end of the Yuan dynasty (Xinzeng gegu yaolun [New expanded edition of the essential criteria of antiquities], vol. 8, p. 2).

A closely related Yuan dynasty cinnabar tixi lacquer box, also signed Yang Mao, but slightly smaller in size, is preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession no. 91.1.645. Compare two other examples inscribed with the name of Yang Mao: one sold in our London rooms, 16th May 2012, lot 68; and another sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 30th April 2001, lot 642, and again in our New York rooms, 15th March 2017, lot 569.