A Fine and Large Chinese Spinach-Green Jade Brush Pot

A Fine and Large Chinese Spinach-Green Jade Brush Pot, Bitong Qing Dynasty, Qianlong period, 1736-95, 16cm high, 16.9cm dia. The cylindrical body with straight sides crisply carved in deep relief with a continuous scene depicting three Immortals with a single acolyte in a landscape. A pavilion set amongst trees is visible in the distance and a river crossed by a balustraded bridge is in the foreground. The stone is an even colour, and the base slightly recessed. Provenance A private collection in Monaco, purchased at Spink & Son Ltd. 5th December 1986. Catalogue Note Another jade brush pot in the National Palace Museum, dating from the Qianlong period has similar dense carving and is illustrated in The Refined Taste of the Emperor: Special Exhibition of Archaic and Pictorial Jades of the Ch'ing Court, Taipei, 1997, pp. 172-3, no. 55. See, also, Christie's London 13 May 2008, lot 54 for a larger green jade brush pot dated to the Qianlong period decorated with a rare scene of foreigners and a caparisoned elephant. In a discussion of the large green jade brush pot dated to the 18th century in the collection of Sir Joseph Hotung, Chinese Jade: From the Neolithic to the Qing, British Museum, London, 1995, p.407, no. 29.18, the author, Jessica Rawson, notes that jade workshops sometimes used conventional painting and printing themes as the basis for their designs. The carver treated the surface of the jade almost like a sheet of paper and used his 'techniques to produce the effects of a painting'. See also the superb brush pot sold in these rooms from the collection of Sir John William Buchanan-Jardine Bt. 20th May 2010, lot 386.