A CARVED AND INSCRIBED BAMBOO BRUSH POT BY PAN XIFENG, QING DYNASTY, 18TH CENTURY |

of cylindrical form, carved with an old barefooted fisherman hunched beneath an umbrella beside a boy holding a fish suspended on a hook, both beneath two willow trees whipping in the wind and beyond a four-column inscription signed Laotong Pan Xifeng followed by Pan Xifeng's artist mark Xifeng

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 31st October 2004, lot 186.

This brush pot is signed Pan Xifeng (1736-1795), also known as Tonggang and Laotong, a bamboo carver who skilfully incorporated in his works elements from the calligraphy and painting traditions. Here, the figure’s robes and faces are delicately rendered, the low relief carving thrusts the subjects into the fore, the texture of the bamboo vividly conveys the movement and energy of wind and rain, and his xingshu calligraphic inscription has all the fluidity of brushwork.  Brush pots signed by Pan Xifeng and carved in this style are unusual. Compare a brush pot signed by him but carved in the liuqing technique, illustrated in Liu Shuo-Shi, Zhuke yishu [The art of bamboo carving], Shanghai, 1996, pl. 22; and one in the form of the bamboo root, in the Guangdong Folk Arts Museum, Guangzhou, included in the exhibition Literati Spirit: Art of Chinese Bamboo Carving, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, 2012, cat. no. 81.