Lot Essay
The inscription is an excerpt from a poem by the Tang dynasty poet, Li Bai and may be translated as: Two opposing verdant mountains stand, facing a lonely junk sailing into the distant sun.
It is very unusual to find a cylindrical brush holder of this kind in the Kangxi period with a carved decoration under a single-coloured glaze. The landscape design is borrowed from late Ming dynasty paintings popular during this period and are often found transferred on to blue and white vessels of this form indicating the popularity of these scholars' receptacles. A carved and incised bitong would have been much more difficult and time consuming to execute, and presumably more dear than one painted in cobalt.
(US$45,000-60,000)
It is very unusual to find a cylindrical brush holder of this kind in the Kangxi period with a carved decoration under a single-coloured glaze. The landscape design is borrowed from late Ming dynasty paintings popular during this period and are often found transferred on to blue and white vessels of this form indicating the popularity of these scholars' receptacles. A carved and incised bitong would have been much more difficult and time consuming to execute, and presumably more dear than one painted in cobalt.
(US$45,000-60,000)