17TH/18TH CENTURY

Stylistically this rare clip is similar to one in the collection of Simon Kwan included in the O.C.S. exhibition, Arts from the Scholar's Studio, Hong Kong, 1986, p. 253, no. 247, which has a bamboo figural clip that pivots in a wood mount carved as a rocky grotto. The mount is described as probably zitan and is signed Sansong on the back. The authors, G. Tsang and H. Moss, date the piece to the first half of the 17th century, and describe clips of the type as usually being of late Ming or early Qing date, and note that although the illustrated clip can stand, the wear on the back indicates that it may have been used laying flat. This clip is also illustrated by Ip Yee and Lawrence C.S. Tam in Chinese Bamboo Carving, Part II, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1982, p. 233, no. 41, where it is described as a wrist rest, and where one can see that the carving of not only the bamboo clip but the wood grotto is very similar both on the front and the back to that of the present clip.