The rectangular tray with angled sides, the interior with a shell-inlaid shaped cartouche decorated with a phoenix flying above pine and rockwork, against a diaper ground, floral and foliate borders, underside with inlaid florets; remnants of a Japanese wood box.

PROVENANCE:

Property from a private collection, Bucks County, Pennsylvania

NOTE:

For a box with similar treatments of rosettes in the border and a diaper ground, see the example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, dated to the late 16th-early 17th century, in Denise Patry Leidy, "Mother-of Pearl, A Tradition in Asian Lacquer", New York, 1996, p. 58, no.13