J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
Arts of Ancient China
March 27 - April 12, 2006
22.
AN ARCHAIC LACQUERED WOOD STEM-DISH (DOU)
Eastern Zhou Dynasty, 4th-3rd Century B.C.
the thick circular platform top lacquered in red on the concave interior and boldly decorated around the exterior with a repeating pattern reserved in black on a red ground, composed of six pairs of stylized serpents with interlocking bodies scrolled in opposite directions forming a wide frieze below a border of overlapping 'S' scroll motifs which is repeated at the edge of the base, the stem carved with eight facets on the upper section and with a grooved central knop, the cylindrical lower section fitted into a truncated conical base and painted with elongated linear motifs which continue onto the base, the upper section of the stem painted with a bold checkerboard pattern and the knop with red bands filling the grooves, the top, stem and base fitted together by mortise and tenon joinery.
Height 8 7⁄8 inches (22.5 cm)
Diameter 6 1⁄4 inches (15.8 cm)
Compare the very similarly decorated lacquered wood dou of this form which is now in the Hubei Provincial Museum, shown at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Art Gallery, and illustrated in the catalogue entitled Hubei Chutu Zhanguo Qin Han Qiqi (Lacquerware from the Warring States to the Han Periods Excavated in Hubei Province), Hong Kong, 1994, no. 25. The same dou is illustrated again by Jenny So in "Red and Black on Some Early Chinese Painted Lacquers" in Orientations, October, 1997, p. 61, fig. 3, with commentary by the author on the technique of creating the design by painting in red over a black ground, leaving the motifs in reserve, suggesting that the method was developed to prevent the disintegration of colors which occurred when the design was painted over a red ground but did not occur when the red was painted as the top layer.
東周 彩繪漆豆 高 22.5 厘米
22.
AN ARCHAIC LACQUERED WOOD STEM-DISH (DOU)
Eastern Zhou Dynasty, 4th-3rd Century B.C.
Height 8 7⁄8 inches (22.5 cm)
Diameter 6 1⁄4 inches (15.8 cm)