A VERY RARE AND FINELY CARVED CELADON-GLAZED BRUSHPOT, BITONG

细节

A VERY RARE AND FINELY CARVED CELADON-GLAZED BRUSHPOT, BITONG
KANGXI SIX-CHARACTER MARK AND OF THE PERIOD

The brushpot has slightly tapered cylindrical sides carved in low relief around the exterior with a short fourteen-character poem and a riverscape depicting a solitary boat in midstream between tree-lined shores leading back to secluded dwellings sheltered below steep cliffs while clouds drift past the sun, the exterior is covered in a green glaze, the rim and interior with a transparent white glaze, the nianhao is written within the countersunk base
5 3/4 in. (14.7 cm.) high, box

展览

Christie's London, An Exhibition of Important Chinese Ceramics from the Robert Chang Collection, 2-14 June 1993, Catalogue, no. 63.

拍品专文

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)