SIGNED SHANG JUN, EARLY QING DYNASTY, 17TH CENTURY

Shang Jun is the pseudonym of the renowned 17th-century carver Zhou Bin. The present seal appears to be one of the largest seals bearing his signature. The carving of the current seal is very similar in subject and style to a soapstone paperweight in the Detroit Institute of Arts, accession number 52.127 (fig. 1). Other comparable examples include a tianhuang seal with a double-phoenix finial by Zhou Bin in the Shanghai Museum; a tianhuang seal in the Palace Museum, Beijing with a similar double-phoenix finial but without the openwork (fig. 2); and a soapstone carving of a phoenix among peonies and lingzhi fungus in the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery by Zhou Bin with a similar but deeper style of carving, see accession number F1958.1a-c (fig. 3).