Pottery box with painted designs

A circular pottery box, supported on a neatly cut foot, the domed cover with a raised ring at the top.  The grey pottery is painted in red and white pigments with bands of geometric and formalised designs, and with a frieze depicting a pair of fighting cockerels, a fish and a running dog.

•   The cover of this robustly potted box is designed to serve as a bowl when inverted. Painted designs on unglazed Han dynasty pottery usually imitate those found on contemporary lacquer objects, but these designs are mostly abstract; the lively depiction of the running dog and the fighting cockerels in particular can therefore be considered something of a rarity.  Boxes of similar shape but painted only with abstract designs are in the Meiyintang collection1 and in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.2  

1. Krahl, R. Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Volume One, Azimuth Editions, London 1994, no. 72, p. 61
2. Li, He, Chinese Ceramics, the New Standard Guide, The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 1996, no. 52, p. 70