BOÎTE CIRCULAIRE COUVERTE EN LAQUE ROUGE

A number of related Yongle-marked boxes carved with the similar idyllic theme depicting scholars in landscape are published. A box carved with a garden scene portraying two men playing a game of weiqi watched by a woodcutter in reference to a story from the "Tales of the Extraordinary" written in 6th century, in the National Palace Museum collection, was included in the exhibition, Possessing the Past, New York, 1995, and illustrated in the Catalogue, p. 458, pl. 261; where the author mentioned that the box was of a type that was sent as a diplomatic gift to Japan in the early years of the Yongle reign, p. 457.

Compare also a box carved with similar theme of a scholar admiring distant mountains, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Carved Lacquer in the Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, 1985, no. 65, dated to the early Yongle period; and a box included in the exhibition, 2000 Years of Chinese Lacquer, The Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong, 1993, and illustrated in the Catalogue, p. 88, no. 40.