REPUBLIC PERIOD

The present tree-trunk-form jardinière is in the classic form of Yixing pottery designed for daily use. The sixteen-character square seal, Zhili Shuntian fu Tong Zhou fengshangbu jiang pai yang shi zi zhuan (Made by Yang of Tong Zhou appointed by Shuntian Prefecture) is documented in the Shanxi Ping Ding Zhi (The Records of Ping Ding County, Shanxi Province). The seal is associated with a workshop in Ping Ding county, which was known for producing a variety of utilitarian vessel forms. The workshop later hired artisans from Yixing, Jiangsu Province, to create pottery that was both practical and aesthetic, and the workshop promoted designs inspired by nature. The oval seal, Zi Zhang, on the front can be attributed to a Yixing artist, Yang Zizhang.

The current jardinière can be compared to a similar tree-trunk-form brush pot with the same sixteen-character seal, sold at Sotheby’s New York, 17 September 2016, lot 1029.