A Chinese Hardwood Inlaid Box and Cover

Compare a zitan circular form covered box with a complex inlay decoration of a single Mongol huntsman on horseback, from the collection of Mary and George Bloch, sold in these rooms, 23rd October 2005, lot 90; two further boxes decorated in this technique illustrated in Selected Handicrafts from the Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, 1974, pls. 51 and 87; and another published in The Exquisite Chinese Artefacts: Collection of the Ching Wan Society, Taipei, 1995, pl. 92. The inspiration for the decoration may have come from contemporary or slightly earlier paintings; see a late fifteenth century painting fragment included in the exhibition Turks: A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600-1600, the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2005, cat. no. 162, depicting a subject of a huntsman on horseback holding a falcon.