Lot 193 , A good large Chinese blue and white brush pot, bitong, Kangxi period, c.1700-15, 18cm high, 20.2cm diameter, small chip to foot

A good large Chinese blue and white brush pot, bitong, Kangxi period, c.1700-15, finely painted with a scholar painting a screen in a garden next to his studio with attendant boys holding his brushes and paints, the reverse with a seven column inscribed poem and private studio seal mark 'mu shi' (bamboo and rock), within double line borders, indented disc to base, 18cm high, 20.2cm diameter, small chip to foot
Estimate £10,000-15,000

Provenance - from a private collection, in the family before 1980.

A longer version of this private studio mark Mushi ju (Bamboo and Rock Retreat) was a favourite name of Qing scholars. This mark can be found on several porcelains of the period, some of them dated and ranging from 1690 to 1712. Mushi ju is likely to have been the name of a private kiln whose products included underglaze blue and wucai wares. There is a brushpot, with the same mark, dated to the year corresponding to 1709, in the Guimet Museum, from the Grandidier Collection illustrated in The World's Great Collections, Oriental Ceramics, vol. 7, Tokyo, 1981, no. 36; another brushpot in the Shanghai Art Museum is illustrated in Kangxi Porcelain Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1998, no. 111, pp. 166-167, and a flowerpot and stand with Mushi ju mark, part of the Salting bequest, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The brush pot has some slight wear and scratching around the rim and to the foot consistent with age and use. The interior has slight wear to the base, some water residue and grubbiness. The exterior has some occasional minor scratches and scuffs to the glaze. The panel depicting a scholar with a paintbrush has a slight hairline to the glaze only by the table but this does not go through to the body. There is a shallow glaze flake 8mm x 4mm to the edge of the base and a 19mm x 12mm shallow chip to the edge of the foot. There is a fine firing crack to the base next to the indented button but this does not go through to the inside. Otherwise in good condition with no restoration detected.

Inner diam- 18.9cm, outer diam- 20.2cm


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Sold for £35,000