Ming Dynasty, 16th century The cover carved in relief with a delightful lakeside setting depicting a scholar in the foreground clutching a staff and crossing a simple rustic bridge with his young attendant following close behind weighed down by picnic apparatus, all surrounded by mighty craggy rocks and trees including a willow, maple and others, in the near distance a boy sits on a balcony before a large screen and other furniture on the balcony of a pavilion in the distance, all set within a plain border, the deep vertical sides of the cover carved in deep-relief with a single register of tree peony on a cell ground, the box with a simple broad flat foot ring and plain black-lacquered base with vertical rectangular sides that slide inside the cover. 10 x 9 x 3in (25.4 x 22.8 x 7.6cm)