AN INSCRIBED BAMBOO-ROOT BIRDFEEDER QING DYNASTY, LATE 18TH CENTURY, SIGNED ZIWEN

delicately carved with a fan-shaped foot rising to a rim of corresponding shape, flanked on the straight sides with a pair of openwork stylistic kui dragon handles, the concave side incised in bronze script with an eight-character inscription, terminating with a signature by Ziwen (Wang Huan), the patina of a warm honey-brown colour

Spink & Son Ltd., London, 27th October 1981.

Another carved bamboo birdfeeder of similar form from the Hosokawa collection, illustrated by Morisada Hosokawa, Itsutokuroku [Wisdom in pieces], Tokyo, 1982, no. 40, was sold in these rooms, 8th October 2014, lot 3105. The Hosokawa example shares the same distinct and delicate shape, differing in that it is inscribed  with an excerpt from Wang Xizhi's Lanting xu.

Ziwen is the sobriquet of Wang Huan, who is recorded in traditional connoisseurship as originating from Taicang, a county in Jiangsu.