Lot 906. A rare famille-verte 'landscape' brushpot, Kangxi period, dated Renchen year, corresponding to 1712. Diameter 7 1/4  in., 18.4 cm. Estimate 40,000 — 60,000 USD. Lot sold 56,250 USD. Courtesy Sotheby's.

of slightly waisted cylindrical form, the exterior  enameled to one side with a rectangular panel enclosing a scene depicting the poet Su Shi seated at a table enjoying wine under the canopy of a sampan, an oarsman at the stern guiding the boat by towering boulders and towards the famed rocky prominence, its sheer verticality punctuated by a crooked pine tree jutting out from the cliff, the reverse inscribed with a seven line poetic inscription from Su Shi's Latter Ode to the Red Cliff, signed Xiu Yuan, and with a Mu Shi Ju seal mark, the partially unglazed based centered with a recessed medallion.

Provenance: Collection of Marcel Proust (1871–1922). 

Note: Kangxi period dated examples of brushpots of this large size and bearing inscriptions are exceptionally rare. As with other related pieces of this rarefied group, the inscription on the brushpot ends with a seal mark not of the poet but of a workshop, Mu Shi Ju. This mark appears on other porcelains of superlative quality and belongs to a very select group thought to be associated with one or more small private workshops in Jingdezhen, operating during the late Ming and early Qing dynasty.

A very similar famille-verte brushpot, also dated to 1712 and from the collection of Marcel Proust, was exhibited in Kangxi Famille Verte, Marchant, London, 2017, cat. no. 31. See also another similar example, dated to 1719, included by Marchant in Qing Porcelain, Marchant, London, 2011, cat. no. 5.  There is a Kangxi mark and period blue and white brushpot of the same subject matter in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Chen Runmin, Qing Shunzhi Kangxi chao qinghua ci [Qing blue and white porcelain from the Shunzhi and Kangxi periods], Beijing, 2005, pl. 206. 

From the Collection of Marcel Proust (1871–1922). Chinese porcelain dated famille verte brushpot, Kangxi, 1712; 7 5/8 inches, 19.3 cm diameter. M4474. Price on application. © Marchant

Cf. my post: Chinese porcelain dated famille verte brushpot, Kangxi, 1712

Related brushpots with Mu Shi Ju marks include a large bird and flower decorated famille-verte brushpot, dated to 1709, in the Musée Guimet, Paris, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics: The World’s Great Collections, Vol. 8, Musee Guimet, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 53; another of smaller size also inscribed and with bird and flower decoration sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 29th-30th November 2018, lot 324. Another, of smaller size, similarly bird and flower decorated, inscribed and bearing a Mu Shi Ju seal mark, from the Jie Rui Tang Collection sold in these rooms, 20th March 2018, lot 310. 

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (1871-1922) was a renowned French novelist, author of the famous seven-volume novel À la recherche du temps perdu, written between 1913 and 1927, based on Proust's personal life told from a psychological and allegorical point of view. The novel includes numerous references to Japanese and Chinese works of art. These deliberate references reflect the author’s admiration for Asian art, particularly its reverence for the natural world which he effectively contrasts with the more humanistic approach of European art