Lacquer Tray with Inlaid Mother of Pearl
Ming Dynasty
D: 12.6 cm, center d: 9. 5 cm. The tray is not covered. Small mother-of-pearl blossoms are inlaid in the curved rim. Inlays in the body show an old man sealing holes and plastering wails, and two boys catching rats by fumigation. Fig. 2 shows the slightly concave base. A sentence from the Classic of Poetry, inlaid in mother-of- pearl, reads "The holes stopped up, we smoke out the rats. " (Collection of Museum for History of Medicine, Shanghai University of TCM.)