A Rare Set of 'Qiangjin' Lacquer Sutra Covers Ming Dynasty, Yongle Period

of rectangular section, each with a recessed horizontal panel set within a raised framed, finely incised and gilt in the qiangjin technique with a central canopied vase issuing a flaming cintamani emblem and leafy scrolls, each wreathing one of the bajixiang, one cover with the Wheel of Law (fa lun), the Parasol (gai), the Twin Fish (yu) and the Vase (guan), the other with Standard of Victory (san), the Conch (luo), the Lotus (hehua) and the Endless Knot (panchang), all framed by florets and petal panels on the sides below and ‘classic' scrolls around the edges, the sides further decorated with lotus and lion masks, the reverse inscribed in Tibetan and Chinese with the title of sixteen sutras from the 5^th volume of the Maharatnakuta Sutra

2000 Years of Chinese Lacquer. Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong and the Art Gallery, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1993, cat. no. 79.
Layered Beauty: The Baoyizhai Collection of Chinese Lacquer, Art Museum, Institute of Chinese Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2010, cat. no. 17.

The overall condition of the covers is very good. The gilding and lacquer appears to be original. The front cover has expected age cracks around the frame of the central panel with associated chips. The corners and edges also have losses and chips. There is yellow paint that has been splashed on the front and the reverse. The age cracks around the frame on the central panel continues onto the reverse side on both the left and right side around the inscription. The inscription only has a few areas of minor loss. The back cover has similar condition as the front cover with age cracks around the left and right of the frame around the central panel and chips and nicks around the edges and corners. The reverse has only some minor dark circular stains and scratches along with the corresponding ages cracks extending through the front.
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These exquisite sutra covers were made for the 5^th volume of the Maharatnakuta Sutra, as may be seen from the title carved in the back of the top cover in both Tibetan and Chinese writings within a panel of lotus petal motif.  Peter Lam in Layered Beauty, Hong Kong, 2010, p.54, notes that it is recorded in the Ming shi (Dynastic History of the Ming) that two sets of Bkah-hgyur were bestowed sequentially by the Yongle emperor to the two Buddhist masters from Tibet in 1413 and 1416 respectively. The sutras of both masters, now preserved at the Potala Palace and the Sera Monastery in Lhasa, are divided into 108 volumes bound by sutra covers like the present set, which was possibly made in the same workshop and belongs to one of the 108 volumes.

For a closely comparable example see two sutra covers, similarly attributed to the Yongle period, illustrated in Zhongguo qiqi quanji, Fuzhou, 1995, pl. 29; and two further examples, attributed to circa 1410, are published in James C.Y. Watt and Barbara Brennan Ford, East Asian Lacquer, New York, 1991, pl. 49, from the Florence and Herbert Irving collection and now on loan in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

An earlier, Song dynasty, lacquer sutra box and cover is published in Ancient Chinese Lacquer, Taipei, 1994, pl. 56, of similar lavish gold decoration painted on a red lacquer ground.