A large carved red lacquer brush handle with cap, Ming dynasty, 16th century. Photo Sotheby's
the slender tubular handle deftly carved in varied levels of relief with a figural scene of scholars and attendants on rocky shores against a ground of waves and floral diapers, one standing holding a fan, another carrying a qin zither, all below a slender overhanging pine bearing clusters of needles and a storeyed pavilion in the distance, the socket containing the hair collared with pointed lappets enclosing floral diapers, the terminal encircled with wan symbols and picked out with a single character shou repeated on the tip of the cap, the latter similarly carved with a scholar and two attendants standing by a lake beside cragged rocks and pine above a band of wan-diapers; 32.5 cm., 12 3/4 in. Estimate 150,000 — 200,000 HKD
Note: See four finely carved cinnabar lacquer brushes of the Ming dynasty included in the exhibition Karamono. Imported Lacquer – Chinese, Korean and Ryukyuan (Okinawa), Tokyo, 1997, pls. 70-73; one exhibited in 2000 Years of Chinese Lacquer, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1993, cat. no. 52; and two further examples fashioned with figural scenes illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. The Four Treasures of the Study – Inksticks and Writing Brushes, Hong Kong, 2005, pl.121.
Two related brushes were included in the exhibition Ming Lacquer, Bluett and Sons, London, 1960, cat. nos. 20-21; another carved with Daoist immortals, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 26th April 2004, lot 1108; and a further piece depicting sages in a mountainous setting, was sold in our London rooms, 13th December 1977, lot 272. Compare also a brush, attributed to the late 16th century, carved with figures, from the collection of Florence and Herbert Irving, and now on loan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated in Michael Knight, East Asian Lacquers, Seattle, 1992, pl.30.
Sotheby's. The Baoyizhai Collection of Chinese Lacquer, Part 1, Hong Kong | 08 Apr 2014 - www.sothebys.com.