Page 58 - Chinese Decorative Arts: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 55, no. 1 (Summer, 1997)

Ink cake with Thousand- Year

Motf
Fungus
....................................................................................
the
Manufactured shop ofcheng Junfang with each needle cluster the Wanli The date
by
perspective, forming era). corresponds to I620.
(1541-ca. 1620) a radial motif. Such a pictorial device for cre- Cheng held a minor position in the Court of
dated 1620
Ming dynasty, ating a more three-dimensional image, how- State Ceremony in the imperial capital, Beijing,
Diam. 41/2 in. (11.4 cm) ever, achieves quite a different effect in this for a short time in his early fifties. His ink cakes,
Rogers Fund, 1929 medium than it would in painting. The preci- valued for their fine quality and elegant designs,
30.76.196 sion of details and the linear approach to mold might have been further promoted by the
a
carving produced crisp image characterized friendships he formed with court officials
his round cake is adorned with an aus- by repetition of linear patterns. The title of during those years.
motif was included in
picious subject, qiansui ling, the thousand- the relief design, written in running script, is This particular Fang's
year-old fungus. Shown growing on a hill molded in intaglio in a cartouche on the other Fangshi Mopu, thus raising questions about the
among herbaceous plants between rocks with side of the ink cake. exclusiveness of design templates between
angular outlines, the fungi stand in the shade On the vertical edge is molded an inscrip- the rival shops and suggesting that there was
of
of a twisted old pine. The tree's needles are tion of eleven minuscule characters: Wanli some appropriation designs between their
depicted in two different ways. Whereas most gengshen nian chen ChengJunfangjianjhi (man- repertoires. WAS
of them are shown from the side, a branch in ufactured under supervision of humble ser-
the center of the canopy is rendered in frontal vant Cheng Junfang in the gengshen year of
57