Page 248 - 2019 October Important Chinese Art Sotheby's Hong Kong

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PROPERTY FROM AN OLD HONG KONG COLLECTION 清乾隆
A RARE YIXING SLIP-DECORATED BRUSHPOT 楊季初段泥彩繪打棗圖筆筒
BY YANG JICHU, QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG
PERIOD 《楊季初》款
of cylindrical form, the exterior delicately decorated in 來源：
coloured slip in the manner of ink painting, depicting a 徐氏藝術館， 香港
continuous landscape with a sage clad in blue robes carrying
a staff below two gnarled trees, holding the hands of a small
boy and slowly journeying towards plateaued mountains in a
distance, in the foreground some scattered shrubs growing
from rocky ledges below birds in flight, the stoneware of a
mottled beige-brown tone, the recessed base with a square
seal signed Yang Jichu
d. 20.3 cm, 8 in.
PROVENANCE
Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong.

HK$ 400,000-600,000
US$ 51,000-76,500

Yang Jichu was a ceramic artist famous for his exquisitely
created Yixing stoneware brushpots, particularly slip-
decorated ones. Recorded in Chongkan jingxi xianzhi [The
republished Jingxi gazetteer] complied by Tang Zhongmian
during the Qing dynasty, Yang Jichu was said to have being
active in the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods, at the same
time as the Yixing master Chen Hanwen. On the current
brushpot, Yang Jichu skilfully utilised a combination of
intricate slip-decoration in various colours and overall
negative space to depict a vivid windswept landscape scene.
A number of brushpots by Yang Jichu, both bearing his
seal mark and with Qianlong reign mark, is preserved in
the Palace Museum, Beijing. For a brushpot with related
composition and similar Yang Jichu seal mark in the Palace
Museum, Beijing, see The Complete Collection of Treasures
of the Palace Museum. Purple Sandy Ware, Hong Kong,
2008, p. 145, pl. 115. Compare also a Qianlong mark and
period Yixing stoneware brushpot which is clearly by the
hand of Yang Jichu, illustrated ibid., p. 143, pl. 113.
For closely related brushpots by Yang Jichu sold at auction,
see one from the collection of Jimmy Sha, sold at Bonhams
Hong Kong, 27th May 2012, lot 548; another from the Robert
H. Blumenfeld collection, sold at Christie’s New York, 22nd
March 2012, lot 1246; and a third from the Mr and Mrs
Gerard Hawthorn collection, sold at Bonhams Hong Kong,
28th November 2011, lot 208.

Mark

246 SOTHEBY ’S IMPORTANT CHINESE ART