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4 novembre 2022

A blue and white circular brush and ink stand, Chang ming fu gui mark, late 16th century

A blue and white circular brush and ink stand, Chang ming fu gui mark, late 16th century

image (1)

Lot 1. A blue and white circular brush and ink stand, Chang ming fu gui mark, late 16th century; 13cm (5 1/8in) diam. Sold for £20,400© Bonhams 2001-2022

The drum shaped stand with three circular and one rectangular opening around a smaller central circular opening on a raised knob, the top surface painted with wave-pattern, the straight sides with a wide band of egrets among lotus between slightly raised borders of coins, the recessed base with maker's mark translated as 'long life, riches and honour'. 

Provenance: S.Marchant & Son, London, 24 May 1966
John Burke da Silva (1918-2003)
Sotheby's London, 10 November 2004, lot 591.

Exhibited: Oriental Ceramic Society, The Chinese Scholars Desk, 17th to 18th Century, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1979, no.46.
Oriental Ceramic Society, Research Display of Chinese Sixteenth Century Ceramics, British Museum, London, 1994, no.44 (illustrated p.6)

Published: John da Silva, 'Three Types of Chinese Brush Stand', Oriental Art, vol.XXIV, no.3, Autumn 1978, p.326, fig.2.
S.Marsh, Brushpots: A Collector's View, Hong Kong, 2020, pp.22-24, figs.2-3.

Note: John da Silva was born in the United States of a Portuguese father and American mother, whose parents had come to America from France in the middle of the 19th century and founded a chocolate factory in San Francisco. After the Second World War he joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The job took him to many parts of the world. His love of Chinese porcelain stemmed from a posting to the Embassy in Rome in 1954, where he happened to stay in a rented flat that housed a large collection of Chinese and Japanese works of art. He regularly purchased Chinese works of art from auction houses in London in the 1960's. He Joined the Oriental Ceramics Society in 1960, serving on the Council from 1977-1980 and from 1984-1987 and as Honorary Treasurer from 1992-1994.

The use of this vessel is clarified by a painting of the famous philosopher Wang Yangming (1472-1529) seated at his writing desk which illustrates a handscroll of his letters and other related material. The piece is shown on his desk with three brushes placed, tips upwards, in it, together with a small vase of flowers, an inkstone and a water dropper or paper weight. The natural assumption is that the rectangular section is to hold an inkstick, which is confirmed by the late Ming scholar Wen Zhenheng, who in Zhang wu zhi ('A Treatise on Superfluous Things') under the heading of brushpots wrote:

'...there are also drum-shaped ones with holes in them for inserting brushes and ink.'

See a similar blue and white brush and ink stand, Jiajing, illustrated by G.Tsang and H.Moss, Arts from the Scholar's Studio, Hong Kong, 1986, pp.226-227, no.212. See also another similar blue and white brush and ink stand, 16th century, in the Percival David collection in the British Museum (acc.no.PDF,B.605). Compare also with a similar blue and white vessel, but decorated with fish, Jiajing, illustrated in Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (II): The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 2000, no.114.

Bonhams. THE MARSH COLLECTION ART FOR THE LITERATI, 3 November 2022, London, New Bond Street

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