A FINELY CARVED BAMBOO 'SAGES AND FISHERMAN' BRUSHPOT QING DYNASTY, 18TH CENTURY

of cylindrical form, the exterior exquisitely carved in precise detail and varying levels of relief with a wondrous landscape scene laden with varieties of trees emerging from craggy boulders and rockwork, a fisherman depicted on a boat floating along the stream near a bridge, two sages conversing with each other near a superbly picked out bamboo grove, a further sage playing a zither (qin) reclusively nearby, the striated bamboo with a lustrous patina 

For a brushpot of closely related carving style and composition in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, depicting the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, see Chi Jo-hsin, Uncanny Ingenuity and Celestial Feats. The Carvings of Ming and Qing Dynasties. Bamboo, Wood and Fruit Stones, Taipei, 2010, cat. no. 6. Compare also an example sold in our London rooms, 3rd April 1979, lot 49, signed by Du Shiyuan and dated 1710, carved with similar composition of scholars in a landscape.