Page 48 - 2020 December 1 Bonhams Hong Kong, Eternal Music in Chinese art

(detail)
(detail)

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN 紳士藏品
18
A FINE BLUE AND WHITE ‘EIGHTEEN SCHOLARS’ BRUSHPOT, The poem on the brushpot makes reference to the famous Eighteen
BITONG Scholars of the Tang dynasty. Yet the present lot depicts only
Kangxi seventeen of them. The poem offers a clue as to why a scholar is
Of cylindrical form, the exterior painted in vivid tones of cobalt-blue missing. It may be translated as:
with a continuous scene of seventeen scholars and three acolytes
practicing the Four Scholarly Accomplishments, including playing ‘The lofty pavilion towering through the azure sky;
guqin, weiqi, writing calligraphy and appreciating painting, all set within The Eighteen scholars long without a trace.
a fenced garden enhanced with Taihu rocks, plantain and bamboo, This painting executed by a loyal hand;
with a poem inscribed above an acolyte carrying a guqin. He didn’t paint the treacherous Xu Jingzong.’
18cm (7in) diam.
The ‘Eighteen Scholars’ refers to a group of high-ranking scholar-
HKD600,000 - 800,000 officials during the Tang dynasty, including: Du Ruhui 杜如晦 (585-
US$77,000 - 100,000 630), Fang Xuanling 房玄齡 (579-648),Yu Zhining 于志寧 (588-655),
Su Shichang 蘇世長, Yao Silian 姚思廉 (557-637), Xue Shou 薛收
清康熙 青花「十八學士」圖筆筒 (d.624), Zhu Liang 褚亮 (560-647), Lu Deming 陸德明 (550?-630),
Kong Yingda 孔穎達 (574-648), Li Xuandao 李玄道, Li Shousu 李守
Provenance: 素, Yu Shinan 虞世南 (558-638), Cai Yungong 蔡允恭, Yan Xiangshi
A distinguished Asian private collection 顏相時 (618-645), Xu Jingzong 許敬宗 (592-672), Xue Yuanjing 薛元
敬, Gai Wenda 蓋文達, and Su Xu 蘇勗. Xu Jingzong alone supported
來源： Empress Wu and framed loyal officials. This led him to be regarded
亞洲顯赫私人收藏 as a rebel and traitor to the Li Imperial family of the Tang. For this
reason, Xu’s figure is sometimes left out from the scene of ‘Eighteen
Scholars’ which has been a popular theme in Chinese art since the
Song dynasty.

Compare with a similar blue and white brushpot, Kangxi, depicting the
‘Eighteen Scholars’, but without a poem, illustrated in Kangxi Porcelain
Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1998,
pp.70-71, pl.46.

46 | BONHAMS