18th/19th century
The fan-shaped box has a semicircular opening at the short sides and is finely painted to the front and back with an extensive wooded river landscape with a scholar, a farmer and fisherman, pavilions, rocks and mountains. The cover with peach finial is painted with a similar landscape with a scholar and attendent crossing the river on a bridge.
Width 6.3 cm
Similar boxes are known in various materials including wooden and burnt clay examples. They were meant to be put in a cricket cage as sleeping boxes together with other implements for raising crickets.
