Lot 16. A blue and white 'Master of the Rocks' jar, Shunzhi-early Kangxi period (1644-1722); 27.8cm (11in) high. Sold for £28,020 (Estimate £12,000 - 15,000). © Bonhams 2001-2022

Of elegant baluster form, painted around the exterior with a continuous scene of craggy mountains in pencilled line around a lake with fisherman on a sampan, pavilions with scholars dotted throughout, all amidst various trees, the sky with V-shaped flocks of geese, all beneath a border of pine trees on the shoulder, the neck with a border of lotus. 

Provenance: Professor Desmond R. Laurence (1922-2019)
S. Marchant & Son, London, 17 October 2003
Marchant, London, 6 December 2010.

Published and Illustrated: Marchant, Selected Chinese Porcelain from the Collection of Professor D.R. Laurence, London, 2010, pp.20-21, no.12.

Note: The present jar is decorated with a landscape in the so-called 'Master of the Rocks' style. This style, which seems to have developed towards the mid-17th century in the final years of the Ming dynasty, continued to be popular in the early years of the Kangxi reign, with a very few examples being made as late as the turn of the century. The 'Master of the Rocks' style was by no means limited to the brush of a single artist, and appears in a number of versions on porcelains from about 1640 to 1700. It was used on porcelains decorated in underglaze cobalt blue and also those decorated in underglaze blue and copper red. There are even very rare examples where the style has been combined with famille verte enamels. The style itself is characterised by the use of 'hemp-fibre' strokes to produce rocky landscapes full of movement and drama, often combined with the use of fluid dots to depict scrub and foliage.

This development in porcelain painting reflected elements seen in the landscape painting of certain artists working on silk and paper. The use of 'hemp-fibre' brush strokes can be seen in the work of the famous late Ming dynasty literatus Dong Qichang (1555-1636), for example in his hanging scroll 'Autumn Landscape' in the Nü Wa Chai Collection illustrated by J.Cahill, Chinese Painting, Lausanne, n.d., p.150. The dramatic, almost writhing, rock forms as well as the 'hemp-fibre' brush strokes can also be seen in paintings such as 'Returning Home from Gathering Fungus' painted in 1628 by Wang Jianzhang (fl.1628-1644), illustrated by S.Little, Chinese Porcelains of the Seventeenth Century: Landscapes, Scholars' Motifs and Narratives, New York, 1995, p.36, fig.2.

The influence of such paintings on the porcelain decorators at Jingdezhen was not necessarily direct. This style of painting was not only well-regarded, it also lent itself to translation into woodblock printing, and it is quite possible that it was through this medium that aspects of style, such as 'hemp-fibre' strokes were transmitted to the ceramic artists of Jingdezhen. See for example 'hemp-fibre' brushstroke mountain landscape in the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, circa 1679, illustrated by T.Canepa and K.Butler, Leaping the Dragon Gate: The Sir Michael Butler Collection of Seventeenth-Century Chinese Porcelain, London, 2021, p.404.

For a blue and white brushpot with this 'master of the rocks' style landscape, Kangxi, see Ibid., p.404; other pieces including a gu vase, and dish, Kangxi, all with related decoration, are in ibid., pp.406-417.

Compare with a related large blue and white 'master of the rocks' style landscape vase, 18th century, which was sold at Sotheby's New York, 15 September 2015, lot 107.

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