A LARGE INSCRIBED AND ENGRAVED ‘PRUNUS’ HUANGHUALI BRUSHPOT SIGNED RUAN YUAN AND ZHU ZHE, QING DYNASTY, 18TH CENTURY, DATED TO THE GENGSHEN YEAR (IN ACCORDANCE WITH 1740)

of cylindrical form, the exterior carved in a painterly manner with gnarled branches issuing in various directions and bearing prunus blossoms, next to an excerpt from Zhang Yu's poem in xingshu and dated to the gengshen year and signed by Zhu Zhe, the exterior further engraved with a lishu inscription followed by Ruan Yuan ming in xingshu ('Inscribed by Ruan Yuan'), the base fitted with a central plug, together with a rubbing

This brushpot bears the signature of Zhu He, zi Mingfu, hao Xijian, a juren of 1760 from Haiming in Zhejiang province, who lived in Jiaxing. He was renowned for his poetry and paintings of plum blossoms, which were considered to rival those of Jin Nong (1687-1763) and Chen Zhuan (d. 1758). The inscription further indicates that the brushpot was made to be presented as a gift to the famous scholar official Ruan Yuan (1764-1849), a jinshi of 1789, whose biography is discussed in Arthur W. Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, Taipei, 1991, pp. 399-402. The inscriptions can be translated as follows:

As you load your brush, you’ll realise spring is already there
To sketch the shadows no one does it more authentically than the moon.
Best of trees, best of trees,
Its belly is as empty as can be,
But when it enters the calligraphy and painting studio,
It successes in having that emptiness filled.
It has both enhanced the weak prowess of my brush,
And long served as holder for my poor poems.
It a noble gentleman obtains it, he should bequeath it to descendants,
So they can preserve it forever more.

While the first couplet was taken from the poem Ji Dongshansi zhanglao Zhaiquzhong suo huamei [Sent to the Abbot of East Mountain Temple, Zhaiquzhong, requesting that he paint a picture of prunus], composed by the Yuan dynasty poet Zhang Yu (1283-1350), the second inscription was probably composed by Ruan Yuan to praise a brushpot, possibly the present lot.