Page 16 - Sothebys Important Chinese Art 09/13/17

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PROPERTY FROM A DENVER PRIVATE COLLECTION Three ‘clair-de-lune’ brush washers of this type from the
Wiedener collection, now in the National Gallery of Art,
A FINE ‘CLAIR-DE-LUNE’ GLAZED BRUSH Washington D.C., are illustrated in Decorative Arts, pt. II,
WASHER Washington, 1998, pp 98 and 99; two in the Baur collection
KANGXI MARK AND PERIOD are published in John Ayers, The Baur Collection, Geneva, vol.
3, 1973, pls A318 and A320; and a further example was sold in
of compressed circular form, supported on a shallow tapered our Hong Kong rooms, 1st November 1999, lot 341 and again in
foot, the rounded sides rising to an incurved rim, covered our London rooms, 12th July 2006, lot 153. See also a slightly
overall with a pale lavender-blue glaze draining to white at the smaller washer of this type in the Palace Museum, Beijing,
mouth, the white-glazed base with a six-character mark in illustrated in Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum.
underglaze blue Ceramics, vol. 23, Shunzhi (1644-1661) and Kangxi (1662-1722)
Diameter 4⅝ in., 11.7 cm Periods of Qing Dynasty, pl. 62; and another in the Shanghai
Museum, Shanghai, published in Kangxi Porcelain Ware from
PROVENANCE the Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1998, pl. 218.

Acquired in New York, circa 1985. $ 60,000-80,000

Brush washers were an essential part of the scholar’s studio, 1985
permitting the erudite occupant to refresh his brush and
elegantly express his ideas through ink. During the Qing
dynasty, small porcelain objects for the scholar’s table,
including brush washers, waterpots, and amphora vases, were
produced in two new glazes, ‘peachbloom’ and ‘clair de lune’.
Whilst brush washers are more commonly found than other
forms, far fewer examples appear to survive in pale blue than
in ‘peachbloom’.

Washers of this elegant form and subtle coloration are an
innovation of the Kangxi reign and display the great technical
advances made at the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen at the
beginning of the Qing dynasty, which saw the creation of
numerous monochrome glazes. The tian lan (sky blue) glaze
is among the most striking products of the imperial kilns and
was achieved by diminishing the amount of cobalt oxide in the
glaze mix. Vessels covered in this delicate glaze are often very

nely potted, an indication that they were probably made in
the latter years of the Kangxi reign, as suggested by Suzanne
G. Valenstein in A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York,
1989, p. 241.

14 SOTHEBY’S