.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The title, Yui Du Ban Qiao, can be read as 'Recite crossing the wood Bridge'
The poetic inscription can be read as:
Song huang jing ye ke xing
Huo ji si jia mao wu
Jing qu an sui yang yu
Cun yun yin gai qian ren
This can be translated as:
'A traveller walks quietly in a pine and bamboo backdrop
Here stand humble thatched huts emitting evening smoke
Near winding paths on a riverbank with weeping willow and fishermen on boats
The wood cutter works under the spring clouds' shadow.'
For a discussion of Lu Zigang, the famous Suzhou jade carver, and the attribution of jade bottles bearing his name, see Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, The J & J Collection, Tokyo, 1993, pp. 75-76, no. 28.
The clerical script to one side of this bottle is of extremely fine quality. For a discussion of calligraphy see Wen Fong, Beyond Representation: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, 8th-14th Century, New York, 1992, pp. 122-123, where the author notes, "Concerned with the immediate present and a long past, calligraphy is at once the most rigorously disciplined and the most fiercely individualistic of the arts. Every calligrapher begins by emulating ancient styles. Since to emulate is to perform a physical act generated from within, the wise student learns not to be a slavish imitator but to seek self-realization. Learning calligraphy thus has less to do with what one studies than with the development of one's inner resources. Although fine calligraphers abound in history, stylistic innovators are comparatively rare. In the second half of the eleventh century, late Northern Sung (Song) China saw the ascendancy of several bold innovators, calligraphers whose highly individual styles changed the history of Chinese art."
The poetic inscription can be read as:
Song huang jing ye ke xing
Huo ji si jia mao wu
Jing qu an sui yang yu
Cun yun yin gai qian ren
This can be translated as:
'A traveller walks quietly in a pine and bamboo backdrop
Here stand humble thatched huts emitting evening smoke
Near winding paths on a riverbank with weeping willow and fishermen on boats
The wood cutter works under the spring clouds' shadow.'
For a discussion of Lu Zigang, the famous Suzhou jade carver, and the attribution of jade bottles bearing his name, see Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, The J & J Collection, Tokyo, 1993, pp. 75-76, no. 28.
The clerical script to one side of this bottle is of extremely fine quality. For a discussion of calligraphy see Wen Fong, Beyond Representation: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, 8th-14th Century, New York, 1992, pp. 122-123, where the author notes, "Concerned with the immediate present and a long past, calligraphy is at once the most rigorously disciplined and the most fiercely individualistic of the arts. Every calligrapher begins by emulating ancient styles. Since to emulate is to perform a physical act generated from within, the wise student learns not to be a slavish imitator but to seek self-realization. Learning calligraphy thus has less to do with what one studies than with the development of one's inner resources. Although fine calligraphers abound in history, stylistic innovators are comparatively rare. In the second half of the eleventh century, late Northern Sung (Song) China saw the ascendancy of several bold innovators, calligraphers whose highly individual styles changed the history of Chinese art."