Printed from Woolley & Wallis

Description

A CHINESE BLUE AND WHITE 'LU RU FENG QIN' BRUSHPOT, BITONG
KANGXI 1662-1722

17cm.

Painted with Tan Zi dressed in a deer skin and with a pail of milk, kneeling before a group of hunters amongst pine trees and rockwork.

The story depicted on this brushpot originates from the Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety, Er Shi Si Xiao, written in the Yuan Dynasty by scholar Guo Jujing. Tan Zi's elderly parents were losing their sense of sight and believed that doe's milk could cure them, which was very rare and expensive. To obtain the milk, Tan Zi covered himself with a deer's skin as a disguise so he could approach a doe and run with the herd. He did this every day, whilst his parents began to recover their sight. One day, a hunter came across the herd Tan Zi was running with and nearly shot him with an arrow. The boy threw off the deer skin and shouted to the hunter not to shoot him. After this warning, the hunter escorted him out of the forest and back to his parents.