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The Property of a Lady 女士藏品
Lot 31

A grey and pale green jade brushpot, bitong
18th century

4 June 2015, 10:30 HKT
Hong Kong, Six Pacific Place

Sold for HK$250,000 inc. premium

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A grey and pale green jade brushpot, bitong

18th century
Finely carved around the exterior with a continuous landscape scene, featuring an elderly scholar accompanied by a young attendant carrying a qin, admiring a waterfall cascading down between rock cliffs and emerging as a stream that continues onto the base, all amidst a backdrop of trees and rockworks, the stone of a pale tone with light grey areas and darker speckles, wood stand.
11.6cm (4 1/2in) high (2).

Footnotes

十八世紀 青灰玉雕高士賞遊圖筆筒

Provenance 來源:
Acquired prior to 13 November 1969, probably from Louis Joseph, London
An English private collection and thence by descent

1969年11月13日前購於倫敦古董商Louis Joseph
英國私人收藏,並由家族繼承

The image of a lone scholar in contemplation gazing upon a waterfall was a popular romanticised subject of the Song dynasty; see for example Scholar by a Waterfall by Ma Yuan (active AD 1190-1225), in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (accession no.1973.120.9). The use of paintings as inspiration for decoration on porcelain vases and jade vessels and screens was popular from the late Ming dynasty period and continued onto the Qing period as exemplified in the present lot.

Such idyllic depictions found favour in the Qing Court as is demonstrated in the variety of jade carvings with related designs; see from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, a white and russet jade screen, Qing dynasty, similarly carved with a scholar followed by an attendant holding a wrapped qin, illustrated by Chang Li-tuan, The Refined Taste of the Emperor: Special Exhibition of Archaic and Pictorial Jades of the Ch'ing Court, Taipei, 1997, pl.64; and from the Qing Court Collection, see a white and russet jade boulder, Qianlong, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Jadeware (II), Shanghai, 2008, pl.53.

明清時期的玉器開始突出「畫意」,玉匠常採用繪畫中常見題材如花鳥、山水、人物故事等,以嫻熟工藝在玉料上雕刻出追求筆趣畫意的紋飾。此筆筒的圖案可參考南宋畫家馬遠的《松崖觀瀑圖》,現藏於美國大都會博物館(藏品編號1973.120.9)。

以類似畫風為題材的玉器在清代宮廷頗為流行,其他相關例子可參見國立故宮博物院藏一件清代白玉插屏,著錄於張麗瑞,《宮廷之雅:清代仿古及畫意玉器特展圖錄》,台北,1997年,圖版64;也對比清宮舊藏一件乾隆時期的白玉山子,見《故宮博物院藏文物珍品大系:玉器(II)》,上海,2008年,圖版53。

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