Antique Chinese Wooden Wedding Basket hand painted with Authentic SEALl (No Lid)

Description

A Vintage (not sure) or Antique, Oxtagon 19th-century Chinese wedding basket hand painted, originally used to carry food to newlyweds. Brown lacquer over pine and bamboo with gold, a lighter color, and black drawn animal decorations around the sides, which are worn illustration, and the bottom has fruits and (I think) traditional chinese letters. Top brass handle with original government wax seal . The hardware on the basket like the brass tacks on the sides of handles are still pretty sturdy and in good condition.  Some of the sides on the octagon wood basket have a few chips and splits to the basket (please view all images), but overall in decent antique/vintage condition. 16" to the top of the handle by 10 1/2" deep by almost 12" wide.  There is
NO top lid to this basket
.  It is lost or misplaced, so this basket can be used to hold so many different things for display without the top.  This would be great for an artist, painter, someone who knits that might want to put their special yarns in, possible fruit, or a basket to set on your coffee table to put remote controls in.  Wonderful character in terms of design and construction with all hand drawing (animals, fruit, people, and Chinese characters). If I have left anything out, or you need any other information regarding this item, please let me know or email me.  Please make sure you view all pictures before you decide to purchase this item.
Shipping is a bit higher because of packing and box size for this item.
If you are going to purchase ebay items I list, I like to provide details and information that is available to me on the history of each item.
There is a Jian Ding (Certified) Export Approval Seal on this basket.  The seal does not guarantee anything except this.
1
Anything made before 1949 is considered a "cultural relic" and cannot be
taken out of the country
without a government seal and/or an officially chopped receipt.
2
in China nothing can be legally
purchased from an government antique shop
that dates from Qianlong's reign or before (i.e. before 1795).
When applying these exports permits to pieces, no pieces older then 100 years gets this seal.
The seal is thus no GUARANTEE that the piece is antique. By
law
it could be made from 1795 up to absolutely modern.
Originally there were two different state departments in charge of the exportation of antiques from China. It was the
State Export Department
, active between 1949-86 and the
Cultural Relics Bureau
, of which only the latter are still active.
Before the late 1980s there also seems to have been four main export bureaus, located in
Beijing
,
Tianjin
,
Shanghai
and
Guangzhou (Canton)
. After this time many provinces seems to have gotten their own export bureaus since from then on new seals have appeared from Hunan, Jijiang, Quangxi, Hebei etc.