Olivia Xu
Associate Specialist
Lot 20*
A VERY RARE WUCAI BRUSHPOT, BITONG Chongzhen/Shunzhi
3 November 2022, 10:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £75,900 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot
Edward Luper
Specialist, Chinese Works of Art
A VERY RARE WUCAI BRUSHPOT, BITONG
Chongzhen/Shunzhi
Exquisitely decorated around the exterior with a bearded scholar official on a balustraded terrace carrying a tablet in his right hand and pointing with his left hand to the sun, behind him two attendants with large fans and three boy-attendants carrying a guqin, robes of office and a saddle, all amidst gnarled rocks and shrubbery, beneath a wide border at the mouth of green and red dots. 19cm (7 1/2in) diam.
Exquisitely decorated around the exterior with a bearded scholar official on a balustraded terrace carrying a tablet in his right hand and pointing with his left hand to the sun, behind him two attendants with large fans and three boy-attendants carrying a guqin, robes of office and a saddle, all amidst gnarled rocks and shrubbery, beneath a wide border at the mouth of green and red dots. 19cm (7 1/2in) diam.
Footnotes
崇祯/顺治 五彩指日高陞圖笔筒
Provenance: John R. Berwald Oriental Ceramics & Works of Art, London, 20 June 1993
Published and Illustrated: S.Marsh, Brushpots: A Collector's View, Hong Kong, 2020, pp.216-219
來源：倫敦古董商 John R. Berwald Oriental Ceramics & Works of Art，1993年6月20日
錄著： S.Marsh，《Brushpots: A Collector's View》，香港，2020年，頁216-219
The present brushpot is unusual both for the rare decorative border beneath the rim, and also its large size. Although 'blobby dots' can be found on the borders of several brushpots from the transitional period, its combination with red and green is particularly unique.
The brushpot is laden with auspicious meaning. The scholar-official pointing at the sun provides a rebus: the rising sun suggests a rise in prosperity. 'Pointing at the sun' (zhi ri) is a pun for 'day by day', suggesting the blessing zhiri gaosheng 指日高陞 (May you day by day rise in rank).
See a related wucai brushpot, early Kangxi, illustrated in Transitional Wares and Their Forerunners, Hong Kong, 1981, p.35. Compare also with a related blue and white brushpot with similar composition of figures on a terrace, Chongzhen, illustrated by T.Canepa and K.Butler, Leaping The Dragon Gate: The Sir Michael Butler Collection of Seventeenth-Century Chinese Porcelain, London, 2021, p.224.
Additional information
Bid now on these items
