Lot 15
  • 15

A FINELY CARVED LARGE SPINACH-GREEN JADE 'IMMORTALS' BRUSHPOT QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG PERIOD |

Estimate
500,000 - 700,000 USD
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Description

  • Height 6 5/8  in., 16.9 cm
the cylindrical body set over five ruyi-form feet, the sides deftly carved in high relief with nine immortals in a mountain retreat surrounded by rocky peaks, waterfalls, pines, and other vegetation, one side with six of the men gathered on a balustraded terrace, each with a long beard, voluminous robe, and a sprig of lingzhi, the terrace with a double-roof pavilion at one side and branching into two balustraded paths at the opposite side, one path zigzagging up the mountain to distant pavilion, the other winding behind a diagonal ridge of rockwork then crossing over a cascading waterfall and turning uphill to a temple with a large tripod censer at the entryway, three immortals gathered in front of the temple, two of them holding lingzhi and the third holding a scroll, a craggy ridge rising at a diagonal alongside the temple, on the opposite side of the ridge two deer resting amidst lingzhi beneath a willow and a wutong tree, the flat base centered with a slightly recessed circle, the stone a deep spinach-green color variegated with lighter green passages

Provenance

Collection of Alfred Morrison (1821-97), Fonthill House, Tisbury, Wiltshire, no. 233.
Christie's London, 9th July 1980, lot 105.
Donald J. Wineman, New York, 24th August 1981, no. 85.
Collection of Florence (1920-2018) and Herbert (1917-2016) Irving, no. 352.

Condition

The brushpot is in good condition with only a few minute nicks, as expected with age.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

This magnificent vessel belongs to a highly refined group of ‘figure-in-landscape’ brushpots, created at the height of the jade production in the Qianlong period (1736-1795). Portraying mythological and historical events, these brushpots are exquisitely carved in green or white jade. The green jade models, particularly the striking spinach-toned examples, appear to have been especially favored by the Qing court. The present brushpot is an extremely luxurious item for the  scholar’s desk and would have made a most desirable birthday gift in view of its popular theme of immortals surrounded by many auspicious elements such as deer and lingzhi. To create such an extravagant work of art, a high-quality boulder of substantial proportions would be essential. Such a boulder would not have been easily available before the Qianlong Emperor’s 1759 conquest of the Western Territories (xiyu), which gave him access to jade-rich Khotan. The number of surviving jade pieces of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) from the period before 1759 is, in fact, conspicuously small compared to the immense quantity of jade artefacts produced thereafter.

Khotan (Hetian in Chinese), in modern Xinjiang province, was one of the most important trading oases along the Silk Road. Its geological setting was extremely favorable for the formation of high-quality nephrite. Renowned for its translucency and extreme toughness, Khotan jade was highly prized by the Qianlong Emperor who on several occasions expressed his admiration for this treasured stone in his poems inscribed on spinach-green jade items.

Tribute jade from Khotan was sent yearly to the imperial court, yet the Qianlong Emperor appeared to have asked occasionally for more than the stipulated quota. The best quality was kept for use at the Ruyi Guan (The Imperial Department of Production) while the rest was distributed among the various other production centers supervised by the imperial court, mostly situated in the Jiangnan area south of the lower reaches of the Yangzi river.

Although Khotan’s rich quarries were under strict imperial control and unauthorized mining was severely punished, as was repeatedly mentioned in the official records of the Qing dynasty, clandestine jade invariably found its way into the many local private workshops. Indeed, some jade masterpieces appear to have been manufactured in these workshops. Privately financed by the wealthy salt administrators in the Jiangnan area, these costly artworks would have been offered as tribute to the court, see Yulian Wu, Luxurious Networks: Salt Merchants, Status, and Statecraft in Eighteenth Century China, Stanford, 2017.

As trade flourished, court commissions became increasingly demanding, pushing the craftsmen’s technical and creative capacities to new heights, whereby they reached virtuoso skill in complex composition, as displayed on the current brushpot.

The splendid pictorial scene displayed on this vessel was probably sourced from a painting or book illustration. It was yet the craftsman’s challenge to transfer the picture onto the hard jade’s façade. To achieve this, the artisan ingeniously treated the carving like a continuous handscroll painting, distributing the various stages of the story over the vessel’s cylindrical surface.

Wielding the carver’s tool almost like a paintbrush, the artist has created depth and perspective through bold multi-layered relief sculpting, subtle outlines and shadow play by shallow etching. Threes and foliage are rendered naturalistically in openwork, forging illusory effects that draw the beholder into the scene.

The pictorial quality of this outstanding group of spinach-green jade brushpots is exemplified by a related vessel in the Sir Joseph Hotung Collection carved with various scenes from the Gengzhi tu [Pictures of tilling and weaving], and published in Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, The British Museum, London, 1995, cat. no. 29:18.

The Palace Museum in Beijing and the National Palace Museum in Taipei both possess spinach-green jade brushpots displaying related ‘figure-in-landscape’ scenes. The Palace Museum in Beijing has three pieces illustrated in Gugong Bowuyuan zang wenwu zhenpin quanji. Yuqi/The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Jadeware (III), Hong Kong, 1995, pls 168-170, depicting ‘A Literati Meeting in Xi Yuan’, ‘Six Hermits in Zhuxi’ (fig. 2) and ‘Seven Hermits in the Bamboo Grove’ respectively; and a fourth without feet, in Zhongguo yuqi quanji [Complete Collection of Chinese Jades], vol. 6: Qing, Shijiazhuang, 1991, pl. 278, illustrating a related scene.

The National Palace Museum in Taipei has a brushpot without feet, included in the exhibition catalogue Huaxia yishu zhong de ziran jian/Viewing Nature in Chinese Art. A Special Exhibition of Select Artifacts from the Museum Collection to Celebrate the 2016 Tang Prize, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2016, no. 28, carved with figures picking lotus blossoms. This vessel is also illustrated in Gongting zhi ya. Qingdai fanggu ji huayi yuqi tezhan tulu/The Refined Taste of the Emperor: Special Exhibition of Archaic and Pictorial Jades of the Ch’ing Court, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1997, cat. no. 58, together with two related examples without feet, no. 55 of smaller size, and no. 56 of somewhat larger size.

A spinach-green jade brushpot with a related figure scene, from the collections of E. L. Paget, Sir J. Buchanan-Jardine, Sir Bernard Eckstein and Sir Jonathan Woolf was included in the exhibition The Woolf Collection of Chinese Jade, Sotheby’s, London, 2013, cat. no. 45; and an example formerly in The Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, Minnesota, is illustrated in Robert Kleiner, Chinese Jades from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, Hong Kong, 1996, no. 13.

Compare also a spinach-green ‘Five Old Men of Suiyang’ brush pot, from the collection of A. Knight, sold at Christie’s London, 21st March 1966, lot 152, and again in our Paris rooms, 22nd June 2017, lot 9; and a ‘Wulao tu’ brush pot from the collection of Robert Napier, First Baron Napier of Magdala (1810-1890), sold in our London rooms, 7th November 2018, lot 19.

The present brush pot was formerly in one of the most important collections of Chinese art ever formed. 

Alfred Morrison was an eclectic collector of European art, autographs and manuscripts. In the late 1850s, Morrison started to collect Chinese art and purchased many pieces from Lord Loch of Drylaw (1827-1900) and from the dealer Henry Durlacher (act. ca. 1843). Morrison’s country house at Fonthill near Tisbury in Wiltshire, was known to contain thousands of works of art. The present brushpot was among the artworks that were cleared from Fonthill House by order of Alfred Morrison’s grandson, John Morrison (1906-1996), First Baron Margadale of Isley, who sold the brushpot at Christie’s London, 9th July 1980.