Round box with red cloud and dragon pattern

[Remove Red Cloud Dragon Pattern Round Box]

Remove Red Cloud Dragon Pattern Round Box, Ming Yongle, height 6.6 cm, caliber 17 cm
The box is painted with yellow lacquer and carved with red lacquer on the ground. The cover is decorated with diamond-shaped brocade cloud dragon playing with beads. The body of the dragon is relatively thick, the whole bundle of hair is waving from the back to the front, the head is flat and thin, the eyebrow is like a flame, the nose is like Italy, the jaw is short and the moustache is long, similar to a goat’s beard, the limbs and claws are strong and strong, which has the typical characteristics of the early Ming dragon pattern. The box wall is carved with yellow lacquer, and the ground is like a cloud pattern. The black paint on the inner and outer soles is bright without broken lines, which seems to be repainted by future generations. On the left side of the outsole, the knife is filled with the regular script of the “Xuande Year of the Ming Dynasty” in gold, under which the regular script needle of the “Yongle Year of the Ming Dynasty” can be seen faintly. It is speculated that the lacquer box should be made in the Yongle Year, and the Xuande Year is later engraved
Five claws are the most common dragon patterns in the Ming Dynasty. Among the four dragon claws carved on the cover of this lacquered box, the one close to the body is four claws, and the three far away from the body are all five claws. But after careful observation, we will find that one of the four claws was originally five claws. After removing one claw, the dragon body will be carved again. Among the three five claws, one finger is broken, which seems to belong to the same five claws at first, and the fingers and palms are connected, and then it goes through the process of removing one claw and making up again. The reason is intriguing, and further research is needed in the future
According to the Records of the Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, in the third year of Hongwu’s reign, “an imperial edict was issued to the province to ban the use of yellow as decoration for official and civilian clothing, and colored paintings of ancient emperors, empresses, sages, stories, sun, moon, dragon, phoenix, lion, unicorn, rhinoceros, and elephant shapes, such as the old ones, can be destroyed within 100 days”. It can be seen that this lacquer box carved with dragon patterns could only be used by the emperor at that time


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