Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 10. (Budapest, 1967)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM - MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Horváth, Tibor: A Carved Lacquer Ting with the Mark of Hsüan-te

Fig. 2. One side of the flower and bird decoration ing in this respect. That is another question, for us now, in regard to our lacquer ting, how far reaching was the influence of the antique style or perhaps better to say, of the taste of the literati, in regard to the applied arts. Until the time when some special research is conducted to answer this question, we just want to mention the fact often referred to by art historians, that copying the ancient bronzes were as much in practice during the whole length of the Ming period, that copying or variating the ancient jades after the catalogue as Ku yü t'u (Ancient jades illustrated), 1341, and Ku yü t'u p'u (Illustrated description of Ancient Jades), 1176

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. Yet, in spite of the antiqueness of the form, the decoration of the bowl, with two pair of birds, one pair sitting upright on the flowering branch of a plum tree, the other hanging with head down, we find a decoration scheme which could be regarded as characteristic of the time of Hsüan-te, or of the 15

th century. A special feature of this design is the sharply joined twigs of the branches. Some day, we may hope to find a closer analogy to this "flower and bird" motive, until then we may call the attention to some porcelain plates which are not far in decorations from our lacquer ting

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. The "flower and bird", or "flower" decorations on the carved round boxes and trays are covering the whole surface, without leaving any empty spaces between the details of the drawing. This backgroundless, this densely 6 William Watson, op. cit. pp. 17-18. 7 Berthold Laufer, Jade, Chicago, 1912. p. 8. 8 Chen Wan-li, op. cit. pl. 50.