Bottle ID: 507

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CARVED WITH BIRDS, PINE AND POEM

Date: 1760-1880

Height: 58 mm

Duanstone, inkstone (slate), of purplish brown, orange-brown and green colors, of flattened ovoid form with shoulders sloping to a cylindrical neck and with a slightly splayed recessed oval footrim, carved on one main side, using the paler orange-brown color as a cameo relief, with two birds flying in a cloud-filled sky and beside a pine tree growing from a rocky, grassy bank by a stream, and on the other side with an inscription in running script, reading ‘Father Siju had this traveling ding made; forever treasure and use it’, followed by ‘Held with both hands and presented as a gift by Yuefang (Moon Boat)’, the base inscribed in the same hand in running script Yinqiu guan zhi (‘Made for the Hall of Autumn Sounds’).
Attributed to Duan.

Similar Examples:

None found.

Provenance:

Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd.
Sotheby's New York, March 23, 2004, lot 184
The Collection of Robert and Molly Hsieh
Robert Kleiner, 1994
Christie's New York, October 18, 1993, lot 125
The Reif Collection

The inscription on this bottle is likely to have been taken from an ancient bronze. The original of the inscription, recorded in seal script, is in the Kaogu tu, compiled in the Sigu quanshu, a massive compilation of ancient books ordered by the Qianlong Emperor. Yuefang, the person who commissioned this bottle, would have drawn the inscription from the Kaogu tu, available in the late Qing to any scholar, and transliterated it into regular script. The hall, Yinqiu guan, probably belonged to the recipient of the bottle from Yuefang. Although there are six Qing scholars who were known by the name Yuefang, none of them is particularly identifiable with this bottle. The owner of the ‘Hall of Autumn Sounds’ is somewhat clearer. There were only two scholars recorded as having adopted this studio name. One was Zhang Siqi, from Guangdong province, where this material was mined, and who was a noted calligrapher and painter. The other, Cao Dajing, from Xiushui, now Jiaxing in Zhejiang province, was a first-degree graduate but did not embark upon an official career, although he was a noted clerical-script calligrapher, a carver and a poet. Zhang Siqi is perhaps a more likely candidate here, since he lived in the area where this remarkable bottle was likely to have been made and in this case, his carving skills are not in question, since he was the recipient and not the unknown carver of the bottle.

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