of cylindrical form, painted with a continuous riverside landscape, on a rocky outcrop two scholars wearing official's caps and a gesticulating monk regarding a nearby waterfall accompanied by two young attendants carrying a qin and provisions, a fisherman at work in a boat below and birds flying above, the base centered with a recessed medallion, coll. no. 1529.
The Jie Rui Tang Collection.
Provenance: Knapton & Rasti Asian Art, London, 2003.
Note: The subject matter represents the scholarly theme of 'gazing at a waterfall' which has a long literary and painterly history in Chinese art. Scholars standing or seated before waterfalls in search of wisdom or inspiration, often with a towering pine tree and amid forbidding mountainous peaks, was explored by many renown artists and revisited both in painting and carving on functional objects such as the present piece.
Sotheby's. KANGXI: The Jie Rui Tang Collection, New York, 20 March 2018, 11:00 AM