A carved 'huanghuali' 'floral' brushpot (Bitong), 17th / 18th century

Peter Wong, Ever Arts Gallery, San Francisco.

Vibrantly carved to the exterior with blossoming flowers, this huanghuali brushpot exudes technical mastery. As the decoration is raised proud from the body, the carver had to carefully shave away all of the negative space of the decoration, a decadent wastage of the precious material. Brush pots with comparable decoration are relatively rare: compare the present work with an similarly-sized example illustrated by Stephen Little in Spirit Stones of China: The Ian and Susan Wilson Collection of Chinese Stones, Paintings, and Related Scholars' Objects, Berkeley, 1999, cat. no. 56. See, also, a carved 'floral' brushpot from the collection of the Reverend Richard Fabian, sold in these rooms, 15th March 2016, lot 17.