A TWO-TIERED CINNABAR LACQUER CANTED SQUARE BOX AND COVER16th century The cover with indented corners and carved in relief with a scholar seated on a rocky outcrop and looking out at a waterfall that cascades in frothy waves below his feet, his assitant nearby holding a food bowl under a willow, the scene set on a neat horizontally-lined cell ground, the sides of the cover and the two tiers of the box are carved withposite leafy bands of prunus, chrysanthemum, peony, and possibly hibiscus all silhouetted on a yellow-brown lacquer ground, the flat base and interiors lacquered black. 2 1/4in (5.3cm) high 十六世紀 剔紅高仕圖方蓋盒 Provenance: The Estate of Alfred E. Guntermann, New Haven, CT 來源 Alfred E. Guntermann遺產, 康州紐海文 For another tiered box that can be favorablypared to ours and also dated to the 16th century, see Priestley & Ferraro, Chinese Art, The Deeper Picture, Early Chinese Carved Cinnabar Lacquer , London, 2017, no. 8. Like ours it has indented (canted) corners and a rustic willow landscape with a human figure. The sides too, are carved deeply with floral scrolls to an orange-brown layer beneath. The authors also cite a closely-related box and cover in the Brooklyn Museum (accession number 88.198), that like our box, has a similar arrangement of floral scrolls around the sides. The cover has a figure of the immortal Fang Dongshou beneath a peach tree.