A RARE LARGE HARDWOOD CARVING OF A MOUNTAIN

18TH/19TH CENTURY

Details

A RARE LARGE HARDWOOD CARVING OF A MOUNTAIN
18TH/19TH CENTURY
The tall, craggy mountain with deep crevices and outcroppings well carved in high relief on the front with a scholar playing a qin beneath a pine tree while his attendant sits nearby, with two other scholars seated at a table on a lower promontory, with rocks amidst rushing streams below and a pavilion set within a fence on a plateau near the top, the reverse roughly carved
14 7/8 in. (37.8 cm.) high

Provenance

Acquired in Europe in the early 1990s.

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Lot Essay

This very rare and unusually large hardwood carving of a mountain is related in style of carving to that seen on jade mountains or boulders and bamboo mountains of similar date and various sizes, where figures, especially scholars, are depicted amidst mountainous landscapes. As the present carving is wood, the carver had more freedom in creating the shape of the piece, as he did not have to restrict the design to the contained shape of a piece of jade or bamboo. The largest of these jade 'mountains' is the monumental carving known as The Great Yu Controls the Flood. Of 18th century date, it is 7 ft. 4 in. tall, and was based on a Song dynasty painting of the same name. Now in the Forbidden City, Beijing, it is illustrated in Zhongguo meishu quanji - gongyi meishu bian, 9, Beijing, 1986, pp. 196-8, pls. 328-330.

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