AN INSCRIBED BAMBOO RUYI SCEPTRE QING DYNASTY, 17TH – 18TH CENTURY |

terminating in a rounded lingzhi-shaped head, the curved shaft inscribed in archaic script with a long Buddhist inscription followed by a square seal reading Nan Laozi yin (Seal of the Sage of the South), inscribed to the reverse with a collector's mark, the bamboo patinated to a rich reddish brown tone

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 26th October 2003, lot 85.

This piece is notable for its naturalistically carved lingzhi-shaped head. A larger sceptre of this type was sold in our London rooms, 14th December 1976, lot 233; and two were sold in these rooms, the first with the shaft carved in the form of bamboo, 8th October 2014, lot 3805; the second incised with bats among clouds on the shaft, from the Robert H. Blumenfield collection, illustrated in Ip Yee & Laurence C.S. Tam Chinese Bamboo Carving, Part I, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1978, pl. 117, was sold 7th April 2015, lot 3018. See also examples with elaborately carved shafts, such as one illustrated ibid., pl. 116; and another included in the exhibition Bamboo and Wood Carvings of China and the East, Spink & Son Ltd, London, 1979, cat. no. 287.