Lot85: A SUPERB CINNABAR AND OCHRE LACQUER TRAY DEPICTING FOREIGN TRIBUTE BEARERS, MING DYNASTY

Today I will talk about plot number 85 from our upcoming auction on October 17th, 2024, and this is a superb cinnabar and ochre lacquer tray depicting foreign tribute bearers. Those are foreigners that present rare artifacts to the emperor at the Forbidden City in Beijing. In this case, most likely the Jungler Emperor, who had a lot of emissaries meeting him at court. Diplomatic emissaries from all kinds of kingdoms and other states that surrounded the early Ming empire back in the day. And here we see with an incredible fine carving three emissaries from left to right. The first one is carrying a large, very large piece of wood here. You can see it here. The second one has a scholar's rock, which was quite popular in the Ming courts. Here we can see it. And the third one is carrying a rhinoceros horn, also very, very valuable back in the day. All three are on a neatly incised ground and surrounded by archaic characters and Baixian characters, Buddhist characters. It's actually combined with a Buddhist subject. And the color of the cinnabar has a layer of yellow or ochre or beige. And there is examples from the 15th and 16th centuries that have that same color pattern. We know that it was in use at the time. It's very, very hard to control. And for this reason, it's very rare on cinnabar lacquer to find this. Then the other thing with 15th and 16th century lacquers is that they have these finely incised backgrounds, which are very, very hard to do only for the central medallion, whereas here around it, the background is left plain. Now, in some pieces, it's covered in yellow as well. That is like the early 15th century lacquers. And then later, they also used red to cover it. There's quite a few pieces known from the 15th and 16th century that depict exactly this color pattern. The piece is exceptionally well preserved. There is, of course, some natural cracks to the lacquer on the background. Actual carving here with stylized archaistic chilongs. And, of course, keyframe border is in superb condition. Of course, it is well possible that there was some repair work done at some point in the last 600 years. If it was done by a professional lacquer master, for instance, in the 18th or 19th centuries, it's impossible to spot it because it wouldn't pop up on the blue light. This may explain why it's so exceptionally well preserved. But this is, of course, an almost unique rarity given the incredible detail of the carving. When this is enlarged, and I'm talking about enlargements up to 100x, the faces of the figures still bear the same character as they have when you look at them in original size. And, to be honest, I've probably handled more than a thousand cinema lacquer pieces in my last 40 years that had good quality, but I've never seen something of this level outside a museum. So, this is really something worth acquiring. The prices are conservative. We start this at 7,500 euros in the auction. The estimate is 15,000, so it's a good chance to acquire an exceptional work of art from this period, 15th to 16th century. The subject clearly from the Jungler period, but, of course, those subjects have been used in subsequent periods. So, we think it's probably late 15th, mid 15th, maybe early 16th century, but not later, not 18th century, because in the 18th century, the backgrounds here would have shown the same incision work. There are no pieces of this quality from the 18th century that leave waste areas of the decoration background blank. That was only done in the Ming dynasty. That's how we know this has to be 15th or maybe 16th century. Good luck in bidding at the auction, and I hope to see you there.