A cloisonné enamel 'floral' circular box and cover, Mark and period of Wanli

Dutch Private Collection, acquired by the father of the previous owner during the 1970s - 1980s while working as a hydraulic engineer in China (Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai), and thence by family descent.

Acquired at VerzamelJaarbeurs, Utrecht, 2021.

This box belongs to a small and rare group of cloisonné pieces bearing prominent enamelled Wanli marks. A closely related box of Wanli mark and period was preserved in the Qing Court Collection, illustrated in the Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Metal-bodied Enamel Ware, Hong Kong, 2002, pl. 53; and another in the Clague Collection was included in the exhibition Chinese Cloisonné. The Clague Collection, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, 1980, pl. 16. Compare also a box with a scrolling floral design, formerly in the collection of Sir Percival and Lady David, illustrated in Helmut Brinker and Albert Lutz, Chinesisches Cloisonné, Zurich, 1989, pl. 112.