A fine and rare Chinese huanghuali hexagonal lantern with cold-painted crown glass panes 

拍品描述

A fine and rare Chinese huanghuali hexagonal lantern with cold-painted crown glass panes Late Ming dynasty, 17th century The hexagonal form of complex construction with top humpback stretcher terminating in plain chip-carved ends above one short and one long stile either end, with lower and upper transverse stretchers, the central H-frame joined on the axis of the transverse with two swinging half-gates either end, capped with cast and turned bronze hardware, the upper configuration terminating with a large forged bronze hook, the lower with candle cup and spike, all joined to the stiles with twelve panel frames, each with humpbacked top stretcher above concealed tenon and mitred stiles and plain lower transverse above a pierced and shaped skirt, all frames fitted with rippled crown glass panels cold-painted in lacquer with a three-colour palette of oriental green, cinnabar red, and lapis lazuli, complemented by three shades of gold powder and ground silver, 61cm long x 67.2cm high. 明晚期十七世世紀 黃花梨嵌彩繪玻璃六方燈籠 Hexagonal lanterns set with cold-painted glass panes, such as the present lot, constitute an extremely rare though documented group. Produced in China from the Song dynasty or earlier, few examples have survived their inherent fragility, and fewer than five are recorded in collections worldwide. The form is documented in a woodblock illustration of 1640, published by Min Qiji of Wucheng, Zhejiang, depicting a hexagonal lantern from the Romance of the Western Chamber, a copy of which is preserved in the Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst. The panels are of hand-blown crown glass, which entered China via VOC trade routes in the seventeenth century, supporting a pre-1700 dating. This is further corroborated by the cold-painted lacquer technique itself. Urushiol (from Toxicodendron vernicifluum) polymerises on oxidation and is incompatible with artificial ultramarine, a property documented by Goethe circa 1787, whilst naturally occurring lapis lazuli remains stable. Artificial lead-based pigments, including massicot and minium, degrade similarly over time. These material constraints confined the Ming cold-painted palette to three reliable colours: lapis lazuli, oriental green, and cinnabar red, supplemented by gold and silver powder. The present lantern employs precisely this palette, distinguishing it from the expanded range incorporating silver oxide pink that emerged in eighteenth-century China under the influence of Giuseppe Castiglione. The twelve panels depict the Four Seasons in a manner recalling the seasonal folios of the renowned Ming scholar-painter Lan Ying. The gold-thread calligraphy evokes the baimaoti of the Song emperor Huizong. Together they situate the lantern within the refined scholarly and imperial culture of late Ming Suzhou.

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