Lot Essay
The present vase is remarkably light in weight for its size, suggesting that the skeletal material is likely to be cloth rather than a heavier substance like metal or wood.
The carving is unusually deep and crisp on this vase and the design especially complex. Compare with a brushpot in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, carved from equally thick lacquer with scholars and attendants within gardens, illustrated in Hai-Wai Yi-Chen, Chinese Art in Overseas Collections, Lacquerware, pl. 163; a bottle vase with medallions carved around the body enclosing figures in landscapes reserved on a thick floral ground in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated ibid., pl. 166; and the pair of garlic-head vases sold in these Rooms, 26 and 27 April 1998, lot 570.
(US$19,000-25,000)
The carving is unusually deep and crisp on this vase and the design especially complex. Compare with a brushpot in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, carved from equally thick lacquer with scholars and attendants within gardens, illustrated in Hai-Wai Yi-Chen, Chinese Art in Overseas Collections, Lacquerware, pl. 163; a bottle vase with medallions carved around the body enclosing figures in landscapes reserved on a thick floral ground in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated ibid., pl. 166; and the pair of garlic-head vases sold in these Rooms, 26 and 27 April 1998, lot 570.
(US$19,000-25,000)