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7 octobre 2012

An Impressive Rhinoceros Horn Archaistic Libation Cup by Hu Xingyue. Qing Dynasty, 18th Century

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An Impressive Rhinoceros Horn Archaistic Libation Cup by Hu Xingyue. Qing Dynasty, 18th Century - Photo Sotheby's 

masterfully carved in the form of an archaic bronze gong vessel, rising from a splayed foot to a flared rim, set with a channelled spout opposite a mythical animal's head projecting a 'D'-shaped handle and resting on a hollow base of square section, the body finely decorated with a central protruding register oftaotie masks, between two stylized kui dragon forming another taotie under the spout and a frieze of confronted archaistic dragons encircling the stem, the inner rim and foot picked out with a band of leiwen, the square base with slightly domed sides similarly decorated with taotie, the austere form interrupted by a large chilong carved in openwork clambering through the handle, with a powerful writhing body and muscular limbs, its head emerging at the rim, the horn of a rich amber colour darkening to a deep coffee tone, the base engraved with a four-character recessed seal mark of the carver Hu Xingyue, fitted wood box; 18 cm., 7 1/8 in. Estimation: 2,500,000 - 3,500,000 HKD

NOTE DE CATALOGUE: The present finely carved rhinoceros horn cup belongs to a small group of vessels fashioned in the form of the archaic bronze gong. Although a number of examples from this group are known from museum and private collections, this cup is of documentary importance as it bears the carver’s mark in seal script on the base. Jan Chapman in The Art of Rhinoceros Horn Carving in China, London, 1999, p. 129, mentions that there are eight cups known by Hu who invariably signed his works by adding a square four-character seal on the base of his cups which are all decorated in the archaistic style. Chapman lists two cups by Hu in the collection of the Aberdeen Art Gallery, ibid., p. 129, and others in the Minneapolis Museum of Art and in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. See an illustration of a seal
by Hu inside the foot of an archaic jue, in the Museum voor Volkenkunde, Rotterdam, included ibid., pl. 134. Compare another cup by Hu, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Bamboo. Wood. Ivory and Rhinoceros Horn Carvings, Shanghai, 2001, pl. 134. 

For examples of gong form rhinoceros horn carvings see one, from the Qing Court collection and still in Beijing, published in The Palace Museum Collection of Elite Carvings, Beijing, 2004, pls. 216-219; another in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, included in Chapman, ‘The Chester Beatty Library Collection of Chinese Carved Rhinoceros Horn Cups’, Arts of Asia, May-June 1982, p. 83, pl. 23; and a third example, from the collections of Edward T. Chow and Franklin Chow, sold in these rooms, 8th April 2011, lot 2705, bearing the signature of another famous carver called You Yiliang.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. Hong Kong | 09 oct. 2012 www.sothebys.com

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