Lot 31. A grey and pale green jade brushpot, bitong, 18th century; 11.6cm (4 1/2in) high. Estimate HK$ 80,000-120,000. Sold for HK$ 250,000 (€ 29,866). Photo: Bonhams.

Finely carved around the exterior with a continuous landscape scene, featuring an elderly scholar accompanied by a young attendant carrying a qin, admiring a waterfall cascading down between rock cliffs and emerging as a stream that continues onto the base, all amidst a backdrop of trees and rockworks, the stone of a pale tone with light grey areas and darker speckles, wood stand.

Provenance: Acquired prior to 13 November 1969, probably from Louis Joseph, London
An English private collection and thence by descent.

Note: The image of a lone scholar in contemplation gazing upon a waterfall was a popular romanticised subject of the Song dynasty; see for example Scholar by a Waterfall by Ma Yuan (active AD 1190-1225), in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (accession no.1973.120.9). The use of paintings as inspiration for decoration on porcelain vases and jade vessels and screens was popular from the late Ming dynasty period and continued onto the Qing period as exemplified in the present lot.

Such idyllic depictions found favour in the Qing Court as is demonstrated in the variety of jade carvings with related designs; see from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, a white and russet jade screen, Qing dynasty, similarly carved with a scholar followed by an attendant holding a wrapped qin, illustrated by Chang Li-tuan, The Refined Taste of the Emperor: Special Exhibition of Archaic and Pictorial Jades of the Ch'ing Court, Taipei, 1997, pl.64; and from the Qing Court Collection, see a white and russet jade boulder, Qianlong, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Jadeware (II), Shanghai, 2008, pl.53. 

Bonhams. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 4 Jun 2015 10:30 HKT - HONG KONG, ADMIRALTY