PROPERTY FROM PACIFIC ASIA MUSEUM, TO BE SOLD IN AID OF THE COLLECTIONS AND ACQUISITIONS FUND*

A FINELY CARVED BAMBOO MOUNTAIN

17TH/18TH CENTURY

Details

A FINELY CARVED BAMBOO MOUNTAIN
17th/18th century
Finely and deeply carved and undercut around the sides in high relief with numerous scenes of immortals, scholars and attendants at various pursuits amidst pavilions and trees in the Kunlun mountains, the legendary realm of Xiwangmu, the Royal Lady of the West, shown seated on her flying crane above figures gathered on a terrace at the top of the mountain, one scene depicting a female immortal seated astride a qilin ready to ascend a path at the bottom on one side, while scholars examine a scroll farther up the path and figures paddle a log boat below the path, another vignette showing a woman in a palanquin accompanied by attendants and a man on horseback, while in another figures approach the gate of a walled compound that encloses a pavilion and further scholars set below a tiered pagoda, carved with a two-character maker's seal mark, Wen Fu
11in. (27.9cm.) high

Provenance

Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 14-15 November 1983, lot 322.
Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 19 November 1986, lot 310.
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Barry Taper, Los Angeles.

Further details

See detail on preceding page

Lot Essay

Compare the similar bamboo mountain, also carved with Xiwangmu descending from the clouds above a group of waiting immortals, and with figures in a log boat near the base, included in the exhibition, Selections from the Lutz Bamboo Collection, Denver Art Museum, 18 August - 30 September 1979, no. 17. Intricately carved bamboo mountains of this type are similar in their quality of carving and choice of motifs to those carved from jade.

More from Fine Chinese Archaic Bronzes, Ceramics and Works of Art

View All