A Finely Carved and extremely unusual Soapstone Brushpot signed Zhou Bin 17th century

of cylindrical form resting on three short feet, the exterior finely carved in low relief with a sage sitting with a wine jar and cup beside him, his facial features and loosely draped robes well defined, beneath the branches of a large pine tree with a gnarled rockwork nearby, all against a hexagonal diaper ground, signed Zhou Bin with the seal Shang jun in relief, the base with a central recessed circular medallion finely carved with a chilong grasping a spray of lingzhi in its mouth, against a delicately incised formalised wave ground, the stone of a warm caramel tone with dark brown and black incusions

The Spencer Churchill Collection. Christie's London, 24th May 1965, lot 125. 

Gerard Tsang and Hugh Moss, Arts from the Scholar's Studio, Hong Kong, 1986, cat. no. 84. 

Catalogue of an Exhibition presented by the Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong and the Fung Ping Shan Museum, University of Hong Kong: 24th October - 13th December 1986

Illustrated in MacMillan's Dictionary of Art, Vol.7, p.134.

Referred to in Paul Moss, Documentary Chinese Works of Art - In Scholars' Taste, Sydney L Moss Ltd, 1983, p.186, for an exhibition of the same title.

Very few brushpots are known in soapstone and the present piece represents the only example known from the hand of a master carver.

Zhou Bin, also known as Shang Jun, was a native of Zhangzhou in Fujian province. He is most famous for his seal carvings, luohan figures and, occasionally, seal paste boxes. Chinese sources traditionally place him during the Kangxi period.  It has also been suggested, though not conclusively proved, that he originally studied under Yang Yuxuan and later worked as an Imperial craftsman in the Palace workshops of the Kangxi emperor.

According to Hugh Moss, who discusses the piece at length in Arts from the Scholar’s Studio, Hong Kong 1986, cat.no.84, the source of the design is one of as series of playing cards by the artist Chen Hongshou printed in 1653 in a woodblock edition and, hence, the brushpot must have been carved after that date.

Although the rendition of the seated scholar and the entire scene on the outside of the brushpot is, in its naivete, somewhat atypical of Zhou Bin, the superb quality of the chilong medallion on the base, with its minutely incised wave ground, is unmistakable as from his hand, and compares very closely with the elaborate decoration found on luohan cushions, such as the example illustrated by Moss and Tsang in Arts from the Scholar’s Studio, Hong Kong 1986, cat.no.44.