QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)

Details

A SUPERBLY CARVED ZITAN ‘RIVER LANDSCAPE’ BRUSHPOT
QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)
The brushpot is carved from a single piece of zitan with a continuous river landscape scene, and with
a carved inscription on the wall of a rock on one side reading chen Fang Cong gong hua, ‘Respectfully painted by your vassal Fang Cong’, followed by two square seals, chen ‘vassal’ and Cong.

A similar zitan brushpot signed Fang Cong also carved with a river landscape was sold at Beijing Hanhai, 10 December 2001, lot 1882.
5 3⁄4 in. (14.5 cm.) high

Provenance

Ji Zhen Zhai Collection
Littleton & Hennessy Asian Art, no. 1190

Literature

Fang Jing Pei, Treasures of the Chinese Scholar, New York/Tokyo, 1997, p. 43, fig. 30

Exhibited

Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

The second zitan brushpot carved with landscape (lot 3060) is based on a painting by renowned court painter Fang Cong and probably carved by him. He is one of Qianlong’s favourite court painters in the late Qianlong period, with 48 of his works recorded in the Imperial painting compendium Shiqu Baoji. Although the current brushpot is reminiscent of his well-known hanging scroll Travelling in Autumn Moutains 秋山行旅圖 (fig. 3), in the Beijing Palace Museum, its sparse composition seems more inspired by Yuan master Huang Gongwang, whose style is much admired by Fang Cong. Here the craftsman juxtaposes long fluid knife cuts for outlines against short, abrupt texture (cun 皴) cuts to great effect.

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