d’Oeuvres de Cloisonnés Chinois”, 2009
The subject matter depicted on the top and the sides of the box, of a scholar in a lonely boat, is a familiar literati theme, harking back to Tao Yuanming (c.365-427), the reluctant official and poet, whose poem 歸去來辭 gui qu lai ci (“Returning Home”) includes the line 或棹孤舟 huo zhao gu zhou (“at times I row a solitary boat”). A box with such a subject may have been considered suitable as a retirement gift for a senior official.
This remarkable box is one of a very small group of cloisonné boxes that share the style, form and palette of the present box. One, included in Sotheby’s Hong Kong, Gems of Chinese Art from the Speelman Collection, 2nd April 2018, and subsequently in Bonhams Hong Kong, 2nd December 2021, features scholars in a pavilion among mountains. Another, but only the cover, having a replaced base, was sold in Sotheby’s London, 9th December 1986, lot 29, also showing a scene with scholars in a landscape. It is a common feature that the faces of the figures are rendered in gilt bronze rather than enamel.
Dating of this group of boxes is not straightforward. Most published dates tend, as here, to place the boxes around 1500 AD, with some margin in each direction, and that has been followed here. However, several features point to the actual date of manufacture being at the early end of this range, or perhaps even earlier. The first is the wirework, which employs, in the case of the present box, at least three different thicknesses of wire and, even more unusually, the use of solid areas of bronze for the boats. This latter technique, sometimes called (though not quite accurately) “champlevé,” is also used for some reign marks on Xuande cloisonné pieces, notably the famous very large dragon-decorated jar and cover in the British Museum (Registration number 1957,0501.1). This jar, interestingly, exhibits a closely comparable palette of enamel colours: dark blue, turquoise, yellow, black, white, dark green and, most notably, light purple. The unusual palette of the jar, which additionally includes small areas of mixed red and white, was enough to make Sir Harry Garner, the pioneer of cloisonné dating in the west, place it in the latter part of the fifteenth century despite the reign mark. The jar is now accepted as a product of the Xuande court; perhaps this group of unusual boxes may one day be similarly redated.