A Rare Silver-Inlaid Parcel-Gilt Bronze Ruyi Sceptre

LATE MING DYNASTY, WANLI PERIOD, CIRCA 1600

Details

A Rare Silver-Inlaid Parcel-Gilt Bronze Ruyi Sceptre
Late Ming dynasty, Wanli period, circa 1600
The long, slender shaft inlaid in silver wire with a twelve-character archaistic inscription playing on the word ruyi (as you wish) and with a ruyi band above the gilded lower end of the shaft, the ruyi-cast head also gilded, the reverse inscribed with a six-character maker's mark, Yunjian Shen Minghuo zuo, in a line
16½in. (41.9cm.)

Lot Essay

The maker's mark is for Shen Ming of Yunjian (Songjiang), Jiangsu province, a previously unrecorded artisan of the Hu Wenming school. Compare the very similar sceptre, with slightly different silver-inlaid inscription and a Yunjian Hu Wenming zuo mark in rounded seal script within a rectangle rather than in a straight line, illustrated by P. Moss, Emperor, Scholar, Artisan, Monk, Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London, 1984, no. 126.

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