AN IMPORTANT AND EXTREMELY RARE YUAN CARVED CINNABAR LACQUER LOBED DISH -

以中文顯示 (Set Currency)

HK$4,000,000 - HK$6,000,000
• ($518,464 - $777,696)

• Place Bid

Sale 2711
the imperial saleimportant chinese ceramics and works of art
27 May 2009
Convention Hall Buy Catalog

AN IMPORTANT AND EXTREMELY RARE YUAN CARVED CINNABAR LACQUER LOBED DISH
YUAN DYNASTY (1279-1368)

The lobed octafoil dish exquisitely carved through the layers of crimson lacquer to the ochre ground beneath, the interior medallion with a landscape scene depicting a long-tailed bird perched on the branches of a maple looking down at a second bird below, its companion seated among pieced rockwork, with further bamboo and foliage emerging from the layered rocks, all set against a continuous air-diaper ground, surrounded by a composite floral border enclosed within a lobed rim with a diaper pattern border, the composite floral border repeated to the reverse, the black lacquer base bearing an incised Zhang Cheng mark and an additional painted collector's mark
12 in. (30.6 cm.) diam.

元 剔紅花鳥紋葵瓣式盤

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Julia M. White and Bao Yanli, Masterpieces of Chinese Lacquer from the Mike Healy Collection, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2005

Honolulu Academy of Arts, Hawaii, 19 December 2002 - 27 April 2003
China Institute of America, New York, 15 September - 3 December 2005
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California, 14 January - 16 April 2006
Museum fur Asiatische Kunst Ostaisiatische Kunst-sammlung, Staatliche Museum zu Berlin, October 5, 2007 - January 6, 2008

No other Yuan dynasty dishes of this exact form and decoration appear to have been published. Three dishes of comparable form and design, possibly from the same hand, include one in the Palace Museum Beijing, illustrated in Lacquer Wares of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, The Complete Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 2006, p. 15, no. 9 (fig.1). The Palace Museum dish is decorated with a peahen perched on rockwork but in every other aspect is very close to the present example. The rockwork, shaped decorative bands and air-diaper all appear to be remarkably similar on both dishes. The Palace Museum example bears a label to the reverse indicating that it was inspected by Emperor Qianlong in the 54th year of his reign. Another, formerly in the Percival David collection, is in the British Museum illustrated by H. Garner, Chinese Lacquer, London, 1979, pl. 49. The British Museum dish depicts a different scene of two ducks and a pair of magpies in tree strewn landscape setting, but again, the treatment remaining decorative bands and features of the rockwork and trees bear a very close resemblance to those found on the other dishes. The fourth example from the Avery Brundage collection, also decorated with two long-tailed birds, is in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, illustrated by Li He and M. Knight, Power and Glory: Court Arts of China's Ming Dynasty, San Francisco, 2008, p. 98, no. 47, where it is attributed to the Hongwu period. It is interesting to note that on all these dishes there is no differentiation between the spatial distances, a feature of Yuan dynasty lacquer carving. By the early Ming dynasty carvers had started using a floral diamond- diaper to indicate land, a series of waves for water, and horizontal lines for sky.

The present dish belongs to a small but distinct group of carved lacquer pieces depicting two birds all of which are denser in their design and less naturalistic than the carving found on the present dish. Although the species of birds and flowers vary from dish to dish, they are invariably decorated with the same compositional layout of a pair of birds in flight against a floral background.

Cf. an example in the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing, illustrated ibid, p. 13, no. 7. Compare also several examples illustrated in Hai-wai Yi-Chen, Chinese Art in Overseas Collections - Lacquerware, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1987; pl. 57 is an example in the Los Angeles County Museum with a peacock and peahen; pl. 59, in the Seattle Art Museum decorated with a pair of finches; pl. 60, in the Detroit Institute of Arts decorated with a pair of cranes; and pl. 61, in the Tokyo National Museum decorated with a pair of pheasants.

About twenty such dishes are known to exist in private collections, and they represent the culmination of a style of carving developed over a century, from the late Song period to the early Ming period. Of exceptionally high quality, these 'two-bird' dishes are discussed in detail by H. Garner, Chinese Lacquer, London, 1979, pp. 104-105, where three dishes are illustrated, fig. 43, a black lacquer dish with two pheasants amidst hibiscus, from the Honolulu Academy of Arts; fig. 44, another black lacquer dish with two water-fowls against a ground of lotus and other water-plants, from the British Museum; and fig. 45, a red lacquer dish with two peacocks and tree peonies, also from the British Museum.

The master lacquer artist, Zhang Cheng, from the district of Xitang in Jiaxing worked during the late Yuan period. Zhang Cheng was first mentioned together with contemporary lacquer artist, Yang Mao, in the connoisseur's handbook Gegu Yaolun, published in 1388, and translated by Sir Percival David, Chinese Connoisseurship, London, 1971.

Zhang Cheng's most distinctive masterpieces have a brilliance of conception and vivacity about them which are more free than formalised. The best known signed extant examples are of large dishes with pairs of birds on a complex ground of naturalistically arranged floral sprays. The most typical features of Zhang Cheng's work is a fluidity in style where leaves and petals curl and unfurl naturally and attain a sense of great depth and complexity without losing a sense of strong composition.

Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art

• 14th Century
• birds
• All other categories of objects
• trays
• lacquer/japanned
• China
• Yuan dynasty (1279-1368)

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