A CHINESE CINNABAR LACQUER 'FLOWERS' DISH

A CHINESE CINNABAR LACQUER 'FLOWERS' DISH
YUAN/EARLY MING DYNASTY

The interior boldly carved through layers of red lacquer to an ochre ground with a naturalistic decoration of flowers, comprising peony, chrysanthemum, camelia, hibiscus and prunus, the exterior with a conforming floral motif above a geometric band to the straight foot, the base with an incised three-character Zhang Cheng mark and a painted red lacquer four-character inscription Eisen or Egawa tobo, 15cm.

Provenance: an English private collection, Surrey, UK, purchased from Ben Janssens Oriental Art, 15th September 2010; sold on behalf of Parkinson's UK.

Cf. Karamono: Imported lacquerware - Chinese, Korean and Ryukuan (Okinawa), Selections from the Tokugawa Art Museum, vol.2, p.36, no.46, and p.21, no.20, for a similar floral dish with the signature of Zhang Cheng and the collector's mark Eisen or Egawa tobo, and a larger similarly marked dish decorated with birds and flowers, both in the Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya. Signatures on Chinese lacquerware are scarce, but that of Zhang Cheng is known on a number of high quality pieces from the Yuan and early Ming period. Zhang Cheng is recorded to have been active as a lacquer carver in the mid to late 14th century, with some of his pieces mentioned in the Gegu Yaolun (The Essential Studies of Antiquities), originally published in 1388 by the connoisseur Cao Zhao. A number of lacquer pieces with his signature also bear the later Japanese mark Eisen or Egawa tobo, possibly referencing the collection of an individual or a temple. Another example with this combination of marks is found on a dish, also with a decoration of birds and flowers, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated in J Watt and B Brennan Ford, East Asian Lacquer: The Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, pp.68-69, no.19.

元末/明初期 剔紅花卉紋碟
《穎川東房》及《張成造》款

來源：英國薩里郡私人收藏，2010年9月15日購於倫敦古董商Ben Janssens Oriental Art。成交金額將全數捐贈英國帕金森基金會。