Details
A RARE BAMBOO 'NINE DRAGON' BRUSHREST
QING DYNASTY, 18TH CENTURY

Vividly carved as a large adult chilong accompanied by its eight young, playfully clambering over the adult's back and scuffling with one another, their eyes inlaid with horn and their long sinuous bodies ending in bifurcated tails, all among turbulent waves crashing at their feet
4¾ in. (12 cm.) across
Provenance
Sotheby's Belgravia, 1970's

Lot Essay

Two related brushrests or paperweights have been published. The first, very similar in composition but with slight stylistic differences and depicting only four dragons is illustrated by H.L. Huang in The Exquisite Art of Bamboo Carving, Taipei, 2007, pp. 172-173. The author attributes the carving to the Qing Imperial Workshops in the style of the Feng school on the basis of the delicate and vivid depiction of the dragons. This attribution is reinforced by the second example from the Ip Yee Collection illustrated by Dr. Ip Yee and Laurence C. S. Tam, Chinese Bamboo Carving, Part 1, Hong Kong, 1978, no. 103, which as with the present example, depicts nine dragons, a subject matter reserved for the Imperial court during the Qing dynasty.

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