Page 49 - Chinese Decorative Arts: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 55, no. 1 (Summer, 1997)

Brush Holder
Late to 17th
Ming early Qing dynasty, century
Bamboo
H. 6 3/8 in. (16 cm)
Florence and Herbert
Purchase, Irving Gft, 1994
1994.381
his bamboo brush holder is decorated
with a continuous scene of an architec-
tural structure enclosed in a garden setting
carved in high relief. One side shows a build-
curved roof set in the
ing with a dramatically
middle of gigantic garden
rocks. The other side
with
a different section of the
depicts building,
a window overlooking pond. The image is
a
of
dense with many layers overlapping space.
novels and scholars'
of the
Many writings
seventeenth had as their women
century
subject
who were distinguished only for their
not
abilities. The
but also for their
beauty literary
fascination of this theme is evident in the fig-
ural scene on this brush holder. The focus is
herself to a
on a young lady devoting compo-
sition or writing a letter a window. Her
by
instruments-an inkstone and a sheet
writing
on the table and a brush in her hand
of paper
rendered in shallow relief.
-are delicately
She is accompanied by an old woman and
from the
attended a maid, who approaches
by
left side of the building. Compositions
almost
identical to this one are found on other bam-
boo brush holders. The close resemblance of
the motif on the various have
examples may
been a result of the circulation of templates
among carvers.
The brush holder is inscribed with the sig-
nature of the artist Cheng Sui (I605-I69I) and
a date equivalent to 6i The inscription must
5.
have been added later, because not only does
the relief landscape bear no relation to the
landscape paintings Cheng Sui, he would
of
have been only ten years old when this carving
was made. WAS

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