Container with Lid

CultureChinese

DateWarring States period (480-221 B.C.E.)

MediumLacquered wood with gilt bronze mounts

DimensionsOverall: 8 13/16 × 8 1/8 inches (22.38 × 20.64 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number48-36/1 A,B

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

East Asian Art

Terms

Gallery Label

Swirling dragons and birds intertwine and conjoin, their limbs on the verge of dissolving into decorative flourishes. Lacquer, the sap of the Chinese lacquer tree (rhus verniciflua), had been used as a waterproof coating since the sixth millennium B.C.E., but it was only in the Warring States period that it developed into an important decorative medium. Pigments were added to give it color, among which carbon for black and cinnabar for red were the most common.

Provenance

F. P. Musso;

Purchased from F. P. Musso by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1948.

Published References

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 134 (repro.).

E.R. Hughes, The Art of Letters: Lu Chi's "Wen fu," A.D. 302, a Tanslation and Comparative Study (New York: Pantheon Books, 1951), pl. vii (repro.).

Paul-David, M., “La Chine et Son Expansion des Han aux T’ang,” L’Art et l’Homme (1956), 50, fig. 132 (repro.).

von Eleanor v. Erdberg Consten, Das Alte China (Stuttgart: G. Kilpper, 1958), pl. IV (repro.).

William Y. Willetts, Chinese Art (Penguin Books, 1958), pl. 17a (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 179 (repro.).

Werner Speiser, China: Geist und Gesellschaft (Baden-Baden: Holle, 1959), 76 (repro.).

Capolavori nei Secoli: enciclopedia di tutti le arti, di tutti i popoli, in tutti i tempi, no. 25 (Milano: Fratelli Fabbri, May 12, 1962), 23 (repro.).

A. F. P. Hulsewé, China Im Altertum (Berlin: Verlag Bei Ullstein, 1963), 536 ff (repro.).

Horizon Book of The Arts of China (New York: American Heritage, 1969), 267 (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart, George L. McKenna, and Marc F. Wilson, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. II, Art of the Orient. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 25 (repro.).

Apollo, special issue for the Asian art collection in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Vol. XCVII, no. 133 (March 1973), 58, no. 1 (repro.).

Danielle Elisseeff , Vadime Elisseeff, La civilisation de la Chine classique, vol. 16 (Paris: Arthaud, 1979), pl. 40 (repro.).

Danielle Elisseeff, Vadime Elisseeff, La Civilisation de la Chine Classique, vol. 16 (Paris: Arthaud, 1979), pl. 39 (repro.).

Suo Yu-ming, “The Dragon Motif in Lacquer Ware,” National Palace Museum Bulletin, vol. xiv, no. 1 (Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China: The Museum, 1979), 9, pp. 1-14, fig. 7 (repro.).

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 340 (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 302, no. 63 (repro.).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.