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拍品專文
The painting of the scene on this brush pot is particularly fine and is taken from the historical novel San Guo Zhi Yan Yi (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms), attributed to Luo Guanzhong, and first published in the 14th century. It purports to chronicle events from AD 169 to 280, which was a particularly turbulent era in China’s history, encompassing the end of the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period. It is regarded as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, and is a mammoth work of some 800,000 characters, with a cast of almost 1,000, mostly historical, dramatis personae in its 120 chapters.
The episode that appears on this brush pot depicts Emperor Xian (r. 189-220), who is being held as a virtual hostage by the warlord Cao Cao, and is shown handing over a belt to the loyal Dong Cheng in the presence of Cao Cao’s spies. Inside the belt is hidden an imperial edict written in blood. Later in the story, Dong Cheng enters into a conspiracy with Liu Bei, Zhong Ji and Wang Fu to assassinate Cao.
The episode that appears on this brush pot depicts Emperor Xian (r. 189-220), who is being held as a virtual hostage by the warlord Cao Cao, and is shown handing over a belt to the loyal Dong Cheng in the presence of Cao Cao’s spies. Inside the belt is hidden an imperial edict written in blood. Later in the story, Dong Cheng enters into a conspiracy with Liu Bei, Zhong Ji and Wang Fu to assassinate Cao.