Page 48 - Chinese Decorative Arts: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 55, no. 1 (Summer, 1997)

Incense Holder

zhu Sansong (act. ca. 1573-1619)
Ming dynasty, 16th-eary 17th
late
century
Bamboo
H. (including
new wooden ends) 7 in. (17.8 cm)
Friends ofAsian Art
Purchase, Gifts, 1995
1995.271
ade for holding stick incense, this
bamboo vessel has openwork carving
to facilitate the release of the fragrant smoke.
The openwork relief depicts "Laughter at
Tiger Creek." the legendary story of the meet-
ing of the famous Buddhist monk Huiyuan
(334-416) with the poet Tao Yuanming (365-
427) and the Daoist priest Lu Xiujing (407-
477) on Mount Lu, Jiangxi Province, where
Huiyuan's monastery, the Donglin Si, was
situated. Huiyuan is shown talking to Tao
Yuanming under a tree; Lu Xiujing stands on a
bridge on the other side of the vessel. Several
of
layers perforated fantastic rocks and a pine
with a scaly trunk and twisting branches con-
stitute the shallow, compact backdrop. The
in
carver's signature appears intaglio on a
foreground rock.
Zhu Sansong descended from a family of
bamboo carvers in Jiading, Jiangsu Province.
His works and those of his father, Zhu Ying
are characterized crowded
(1520 -1587), by
of
in
compositions figures nature, spatial com-
pression, and a keen interest in the characters'
interactions through expression and posture.
Compared with his father's output, Sansong's
style is more developed in its use of high relief.
The Zhu family founded the Jiading school of
bamboo carving, and their followers flourished
until the eighteenth century. WAS

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