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A nice floral box with silk lining. The bottom seal seems to be some sort of QianLong rendition?

But what do the lid's characters represent?

Chinese? Japanese? What's your guess?

This is an odd one. Yes about the bottom being some Qianlong variant, but I have no reading for the character on the right within the circle which under other circumstances I would expect to be 年 for "years" or "reign." I don't remember seeing the character written this way before, however. Otherwise the reading is 乾隆X造


The characters on the lid by and large have me stumped. Between the two encircled and highly stylized characters are what might be 書文(?)子(?), yielding when read from right to left "written by Ziwen." The only historical person I can immediately locate who used that nickname was some sort of prominent magistrate during China's Spring and Autumn period, but as I am unsure of the characters' reading, I don't think it's worth putting any stock in that idea. Hopefully someone else will have a more plausible reading.

On origin, I would think that the enamel colors might provide a clue but know nothing about that topic myself....

here are some other boxes, from China and Japan, from various decades between 1880 and 1930 (yes, I know, that's a 50-years span).

What puzzles me:
--the construction of the box is different from later Chinese humidors and boxes
--the fabric lining seems to appear more often in Japanese boxes
--the way the flowers, lotus pods, roots seem Chinese the way they're drawn, but their naturalism seems more Japanese
--the photos are terrible, so it's really hard to judge enamel quality, so hard to distinguish between fine Chinese and Meiji Japanese work
--the funky red-on-white character seal resembles 19th century "Jing Tai" Chinese seals, whereas actual Qianlong seals look very different.
--the odd characters on the lid remind me of Japanese renditions of Chinese characters (small koro pictured in following post)

"Da Ming" and ... something else

福 "fu" (Chinese) or "fuku" (Japanese): good fortune, happiness, good luck.

Note the fine wirework and naturalism.

That's Chinese? Would have guessed Japan. Seems quite detailed.

Here's a millefleur composite from the Chinese site noted in the picture.

In biz from 1860 to at least the end of World War II...what happened after Liberation would be most interesting to know.

Hello. I read the Chinese characters do not know, but I was helped. Perhaps 子 久 画 - author Tszytszyu. Tszytszyu - another name of the artist Juan Gunvan (1269-1354)? Http: //wapbaike.baidu.com/view/88741.htm? Adapt = & 1, but drew in a very different style. Stylized characters on the edges possible right 行, left 仔. Why are they there, I do not know.

Great idea if the middle character is really 久. Using pinyin romanization it would be Zijiu, one of the names for Yuan landscape painter Huang Gongwang. But that artist has zero stylistic relevance to this scene or medium and is not known as a calligrapher (the third character is 書 to write, not 畫/画 to paint).

This is Huang's most famous painting: http://www.npm.gov.tw/exh100/fuchun/en_02.html

Agree with your reading of the two encircled characters as possibly being 行 and 仔, and also don't understand their meaning here!

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