AN INSCRIBED OLIVE-STONE CARVING OF A BOAT BY GUSHENG, QING DYNASTY, TONGZHI PERIOD, DATED JIAZI YEAR (IN ACCORDANCE WITH 1864)

intricately carved with attendants fanning under the awning and passengers looking out, each end of the boat with two passengers seated at a table and a group of passengers riding on top of the roof, for a total of twenty-six passengers, deftly rendered with openable windows, the underside incised with a poem, paying tribute to the poet Su Shi who visited the Red Cliff (Chibi), signed Gusheng laodaoren zuo and dated to the seventh lunar month of the jiazi year

The vogue for miniature crafts, including carving on olive, peach, walnut and various other fruit stones was started during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor and remained popular throughout the Qing and Republican era. Examples of imperial miniature craft are illustrated in Masterpieces of Chinese Miniature Craft in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1971, pls. 1-50, with an introduction to its history, pp. 78-9. The present carving is the work of Gusheng (1802-1876), a scholar who became a xiucai (county-level rank) at the age of 22, but did not progress any further. A native of Guangdong, Gusheng took up a career as a carver specialising in miniature craft. He became known for his olive-stone carvings, especially those depicting the Song dynasty poet Su Shi and his companions in a pleasure boat visiting the Red Cliff (Chibi).

Compare a carved walnut, the shell worked in high relief with a design of figures and dragons amongst a flower and rock landscape, included in the exhibition The Minor Arts of China IV, Spink and Son Ltd., London, 1989, cat. no. 28; and a pair of finely carved walnut-shell hand exercisers illustrated in Gerard Tsang and Hugh Moss, Arts from the Scholar's Studio, Hong Kong, 1986, pl. 259. See also another olive-stone carving of a sampan by Gusheng, sold in these rooms, 2nd June 2016, lot 77, from the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat collection.