WANLI SIX-CHARACTER GILT-FILLED INSCRIBED MARK IN A LINE AND OF THE PERIOD (1573-1619)

Several other comparable boxes and covers are known and published, all with slightly different designs. A slightly larger qiangjin and tianqi box (47.8 cm. wide) of similar form incised with a Wanli cyclical date and decorated with two dragons centered around a shou character from the Lee Family Collection is illustrated in Dragon and Phoenix - Chinese Lacquer Ware, The Lee Family Collection, Tokyo, 1990, no. 82, p. 190-191. Another (36.6 cm. wide), also bearing a Wanli cyclical date and decorated with two dragons centered on auspicious emblems, from the Palace Museum, is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 45 - Lacquer Wares of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, Beijing, 2006, pp. 224-25, no. 177.