Covered box

Several designs of flowers and figures-in-landscape found on fifteenth-century lacquerware continued to be used well into the Qing dynasty. One of these design series, represented here by a box, is decorated in vigorously carved shallow relief depicting a boy playing in the landscape at the top of the box. The character for happiness alternating with melon petals—a symbol of fertility— along the lid’s borders indicates it was made for a celebration.