bowl, unknown maker from China

Archive Label 2003: This rare, dated lacquer bowl has a carved outer surface that is divided into four ogee or medallion-shaped panels. Each panel has different birds, flowers and foliage (one with cock, hen and peonies; one with ducks, flowering plum and bamboo; one with a fox and three birds including a pheasant; and one with cranes and pines). Each bird, the fox, each flower, and the foliage have an auspicious meaning. These motifs in landscape settings and a finely incised inscription on the bowl’s base indicate that it was made for private family, as opposed to imperial, use. Archive Label date unknown: The bird and flower motifs in landscape settings which decorate this bowl indicate that it was made for non-official use. The carved red lacquer outer surface is divided into four medallion-shaped panels depicting ducks, flowering plum, bamboo, a fox, cranes, pines, a rooster, hens, and peonies. Filling the spaces between the medallions is a design of elegant twelve-pointed stars set in interlocked circles. The bowl is one of the few dated pieces from this period, and thus is extremely important to the study of Ming lacquer.