Late Ming Dynasty The top of the cover superbly carved with eighteen scholars and their attendants engaged in the 'Four Scholarly Accomplishments', with two pairs playing weiqi in front of a large screen depicting a landscape, a trio admiring a scroll painting of bamboo next to another scholar writing on a fan with a brush in front of a plantain, and a group listening to a guqin player in a pavilion, another group conversing on a bridge, a deer and crane wandering through the idyllic scene, all reserved on an intricately incised diaper ground, the sides of the box and cover with shaped panels enclosing prunus branches reserved on a diaper-pattern ground, above key-fret borders, the bracket feet with writhing chi dragons, the interior and base lacquered black. 58.8cm (23 1/8in) wide (2).