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A SMALL MOTHER-OF-PEARL AND WIRE-INLAID BLACK LACQUER TABLE
- POSSIBLY KOREAN, 14TH-15TH CENTURY, OR RYUKYUAN

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A SMALL MOTHER-OF-PEARL AND WIRE-INLAID BLACK LACQUER TABLE
POSSIBLY KOREAN, 14TH-15TH CENTURY, OR RYUKYUAN
Estimate
(Set Currency)
    $10,000 - $15,000

Sale Information

Sale 2405
Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Including Property from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections
25 March 2010
New York, Rockefeller Plaza





Lot Description

A SMALL MOTHER-OF-PEARL AND WIRE-INLAID BLACK LACQUER TABLE
POSSIBLY KOREAN, 14TH-15TH CENTURY, OR RYUKYUAN
Of ogival shape raised on six cabriole legs teminating in upturned lotus leaves and joined by an apron pierced with ruyi heads, the top inlaid in mother-of-pearl with a panel of floral scroll issuing from a small rock, the stems made in curls of thin, twisted brass wire, and framed by a border of linked circles and floral latticework enclosing cartouches of further flower scroll, the edges, sides, apron and legs inlaid with diaper pattern
8¼ in. (21 cm.) high, 18 in. (46 cm.) wide, 11¼ (21 cm.) deep

Lot Condition Report
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Provenance

Sammy Lee & Wangs Co., Ltd., Hong Kong, 1973.

Literature

Lee Yu-kuan, Oriental Lacquer Art, New York/Tokyo, 1972, p. 320, no. 245.

Lot Notes

For a Korean table of rectangular shape with similar floral scroll inlay also in an ogival panel, dated late Koryo/early Choson period, 14th-15th century, see James C. Y. Watt and Barbara Brennan Ford, East Asian Lacquer: The Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991, pp. 314-5, no. 153. Similar mother-of-pearl inlay can also be seen on a similarly dated Korean black lacquer tray of barbed ogival shape and similar size (17 1/8 in.), in the collection of Florence and Herbert Irving, illustrated by Denise Leidy, Mother-of-Pearl: A Tradition in Asian Lacquer, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006, p. 59, no. 34. The author notes that the stems of the scroll are in "pearl shell" rather than the silver or brass wire of earlier pieces.

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