A large inscribed huanghuali ‘mountainscape’ brushpot, Qing dynasty, 18th century | 清十八世紀　黃花梨山水人物圖筆筒

One Man’s Taste, Treasures from the Lakeside Pavilion, Collection Baur, Virginia & Edward Chow Foundation, Geneva, 1988, cat. no. W.14.

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《One Man’s Taste. Treasures from the Lakeside Pavilion》，鮑氏東方藝術館，Virginia & Edward Chow Foundation，日內瓦，1988年，編號W.14

The present brushpot is inscribed with a verse from the Tang dynasty poet Li Qiao’s poem Mountain, which can be translated as: 

A spring flies down

like a single white ribbon;

Summits emerge

halfway into the clouds.

This is followed by a seal reading biyan (“jade cliff”). The poem from which these lines are taken first paints a vivid portrait of a lofty, majestic mountain—its soaring peaks, cascading waterfall, cloud-wreathed summits, and time-worn cliffs—then shifts in the final couplet to a political and moral ideal, noting that this mountain once hosted imperial rites, and expressing the poet’s hope to meet a wise and enlightened ruler.