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I sent some pics to Peter for his opinion (my first time doing that!) on this Chinese brown lacquer box with inset yellow (ochre) cinnabar lacquer panel. I picked it up while poking around my local thrift-antique malls in the area - My lunch cost me more than the box!
If anyone has some thoughts to share on the age, I'm all ears.
What I can say is that the piece is no later than 18th c., but perhaps as early as 16th c.
I've owned one nice Ming cinnabar before, as well as a few Qianlong pieces... but all were the traditional red cinnabar, and designs that are well known in the collector's world. Yellow, or ochre, is very rare and you generally only see it in combination with red or black cinnabar.
Additionally, this landscape scene doesn't have any people in it...very unusual.
Sotheby's offered a 16th c. carved red cinnabar box back in 2015 with an estimate of $20,000-30,000, but it doesn't show a sold price (perhaps unsold). I wonder if they dated it correctly.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/chinese-works-of-art-n09317/lot.226.html
The carved panel is of good size for cinnabar, 10" x 7", so I suspect the box was used for stationary for a high level dignitary... perhaps even imperial.
Anyway...I was too excited to keep it to myself... hope you all enjoy seeing it.
Tim
Very pretty! For some reason it feels Japanese to me in certain ways. I'm curious to know once you learn more. Let us know what Peter says!
@johnshoe I know what you mean - but there's a trick you should know, because the value of Japanese cinnabar (which is pretty much all from the Meiji onward) is so much lower than Chinese.
Japanese cinnabar often mimics Chinese Ming cinnabar, but the Japanese make a thick single layer cast of lacquer, then carve. The Chinese make multiple layers - Yuan-Ming might have 50-200 very thin layers, early to mid Qing 20-100 thin layers, and late Qing to modern 1-20 layers (very visible).
Look at this photo (I posted it earlier, too)...
Do you see the rings? It's almost like wood. What you are looking at is the gentle slope of the carved mountain that shows the thin layers of lacquer as the carving goes deeper.
It's incredible to think about. Each layer is only 1/10th of a milimeter... maybe thinner.
Here's a close up of the rings on the 15th cinnabar box I sold in 2015. I think they have similar amount of rings, but obviously a different color. What do you think?
@greeno107 so interesting. I was also going to say how wood-like this looks. Is there such a thing as Chinese lacquer made for the Japanese market, and what kind of wood do you think the box is made of? Can we see the inside?
@greeno107 it looks like wood grain to me. I need to experience some more lacquer up close to learn about it because I know next to nothing.
@johnshoe The connection with Japanese taste is not coincidental - the Japanese have always loved Chinese lacquer!
The finest examples of Yuan and Ming lacquer exist because the Chinese gifted Japanese ambassadors and Buddhist temples in Japan with gifts of cinnabar. Quite literally, even small dishes about 4" wide are worth millions of USD. These items are considered national treasures.
So, it was not made specifically to appeal to the Japanese taste, but rather that Japanese found the esthetics suited their tastes. Does that make sense?
@greeno107 Yes, I see. But does your box, in construction terms, seem Japanese in style to you? Have you found other examples where only the top panel was carved like this? It has a sleakness and simplicity (I don't mean it is simple, just that it is neatly and cleanly designed) that seems more Japanese than Chinese.
@johnshoe Interesting question. If I understand you correctly, have I found Japanese lacquer boxes with insets of cinnabar on the top? No.
Jade, hardstone, porcelain... but no cinnabar in neither Japanese or Chinese.
The construction of the actual box is hard to catagorize as being Japanese or Chinese in style. They both used the same black lacquer and a box shape is a box shape.
I do have quite a lot of Japanese lacquer. Other than modern pieces, I think it would be rare for the Japanese to make a solid black lacquer box without any gold decor (maki-e) - that's what the Japanese are famous for.
There is a chip on the corner of the box in the brown lacquer, and a I can see a layer of clay between the brown lacquer and the wood core - that's a Chinese method. On my Japanese boxes, the black lacquer is applied directly to the wood core.
I think I've solved my own question regarding age...and I think it explains the unusual carving.
Littleton and Hennessy are lacquer experts and they put out this catalog some years back on lacquer:
http://www.littletonandhennessy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/chinese-lacquer.pdf
Anyway, I re-read it tonight and what I learned is that by the Qianlong, most of the knowledge on carving/making cinnabar had been lost. So, Emperor Qianlong ordered bamboo carvers to make pieces.
Wouldn't you say the rocky mountains look a lot like those on my bamboo brushpots?
Christie's says it's 17th to 18th c.... I don't know for certain.
Let me post this Japanese cinnabar inro as an example of how Japanese differs than Chinese...
Notice that the lacquer is all one layer... no rings where the cuts go into the lacquer. Additionally, look how rough the carving and surface is... not great up close.
@greeno107 Here is an amazing Imperial Qianlong lacquer panel I got to see in person a year or so back. Just thought you would enjoy seeing it.
https://www.albanyinstitute.org/details/items/lacquer-panel.html
@johnshoe That's an amazing wall panel (screen). Embelishments with jade on the frame was the rage during the Qianlong.
I have seen larger table sized cinnabar screens that have landscapes of jagged mountains - they are quite amazing looking, but the detail is not quite as fine as that of my much smaller box panel - in photos it is hard to differenciate the quality because you loos perspective of size.
I found on Liveauctioneers.com this very finely carved 19th c. Chinese cinnabar box that was carved in the Ming style - sold for about $5,500 including premium earlier in 2022.
I put a photo of the cover side by side by my panel which is slightly smaller (12"x9" vs. 10"x7")
The 19th c. box is really well made...beautiful. But, side by side, you can see the differences in the fineness of the carving....keep in mind that my cover is actually 2" smaller on each dimension even though I kept the images of simiilar size.
#greeno,
It's a very nice box you procured.
Mark
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