A Large Inscribed Chinese Blue and White 'Spring Banquet' Brushpot, Qing Dynasty, Kangxi Period

The present brushpot is inscribed with Li Bai's poem Chunye yan tao liyuan xu 春夜宴桃李園序 (Preface to the Spring Evening Banquet at the Peach and Pear Blossom Garden), composed around 733. The poem begins with a rumination on the transience of life, and describes Li Bai drinking and composing poems during a spring evening with friends, the fragrance of peach blossoms hanging in the air, and concludes with a three-drink punishment for those who fail to produce a poem. 

The lively cobalt-blue painting captures the poetic scene, with the scholarly men seated around two tables engaged in various activities. One sips from a cup next to a man with both hands raised as if speaking, another extends his arm out as an attendant pours from an ewer into his cup, while one man encourages his neighbor to imbibe more wine. The lanterns and surrounding trees, some still with bare branches and others laden with peach blossoms, suggest that this is a brisk, early spring evening. 

Compare other Kangxi period blue and white brushpots depicting the same subject matter: the first, of similar size and also inscribed, but of slightly waisted form, was sold in these rooms, March 15, 2017, lot 668. The second, from the Ashfield Collection, with a continuous painted scene, is illustrated in Sam Marsh, Brushpots: A Collector's View, Hong Kong, 2020, p. 136. The third smaller brushpot of slightly waisted cylindrical form is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Chen Runmin, Gugong bowuyuan cang Qingdai ciqi leixuan, Qing Shunzhi Kangxi chao qinghuaci [Qing porcelains from the Palace Museum Collection Selected by Type: Blue-and-white porcelain of the Shunzhi and Kangxi reigns of the Qing], vol. 1, Beijing, 2004, pl. 211. See also an inscribed 'Four Accomplishments' brushpot, illustrated in Kangxi Porcelain Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, Shanghai, 1998, pl. 39.