Reading Pictures in the Round: Ming and Qing Brush Pots in the Scholar’s Studio and at the Imperial Court

Yun An Gallery · Collection Studies

The Qing bamboo Orchid Pavilion and a Ming pot carved with a lesson at home offer two ways into this collection. One invites the viewer to turn the vessel to follow a gathering. The other compresses the exchange between teacher and child into the space before a screen. What room does a maker find inside the narrow compass of a writing implement?

How a bamboo node becomes a base

The late Ming bamboo brush pot with a mother instructing her child measures 15.5 cm high. A cross partition at a bamboo node forms the floor of the vessel. The hollow stem takes the brushes while the outer wall provides a field for carving. The catalogue describes the work as being in the style of Zhu Sansong, a useful distinction between stylistic comparison and documented authorship.

Fig. 1 · Bamboo brush pot with a mother instructing her child, in the style of Zhu Sansong, late Ming

Fig. 2 · Bamboo brush pot with nine peaches, Qing dynasty

A woman holds a brush and the child looks up from a book. An inkstone and a small vessel stand on the table before the screen. A furnishing for a writing desk thus carries a scene of writing at another desk. The Qing pot with nine peaches makes different use of its bamboo: branches follow the curve of the stem. A root-burl example carries the irregularity out to the silhouette itself. Following the rim down to the foot reveals choices that a frontal view alone can conceal.

Fig. 3 · Brush pot following the form of a root burl, Qing dynasty

Low relief and the fall of light

The Two Qiaos Reading Together sets two women at a desk. The line of the tabletop brings their attention to a common focus. Areas left smooth give small rises in the carving room to register. The catalogue describes the technique as bodi yangwen, low positive relief. The surrounding ground is cut back just enough for a fold or an edge to cast a fine shadow in raking light.

Fig. 4 · Bamboo brush pot with the Two Qiaos reading together, early Qing

An early Qing zitan brush pot portrays women playing a board game in higher relief. In one work the direction of reading connects the figures. In the other, the board determines where the players sit and look. Their activities explain the compositions more precisely than the broad catalogue category of “ladies.”

Fig. 5 · Zitan brush pot with women playing a board game in high relief, early Qing

Reading the Orchid Pavilion around a cylinder

The museum’s mid-Qing bamboo Gathering at the Orchid Pavilion is 19.5 cm high and bears the mark Meilin. In 353, Wang Xizhi and his companions gathered at Kuaiji to drink and compose verse beside the water. A cylinder gives the carver a problem unlike that of a handscroll: the far side always eludes the viewer. A bank or a rock can close one passage and lead the eye into the next as the pot turns.

Fig. 6 · Bamboo Orchid Pavilion gathering, marked Meilin, mid-Qing

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds an eighteenth- to nineteenth-century nephrite version, accession 02.18.679, measuring 20.3 cm high and 22 cm across. The comparison separates subject from medium. Which visual clues identify the gathering, and how clearly do figures emerge against stone or bamboo? A Ming zitan pot here tells a different Wang Xizhi story: the association of the calligrapher with geese replaces the gathering of poets as the identifying motif.

Fig. 7 · Zitan brush pot with Wang Xizhi and geese, Ming dynasty

Wood grain, poetry and the inscribed line

The Qing huanghuali pot with plum blossom and poetry is 21 cm high and 22.3 cm in diameter. Both branches and characters are incised. Grain passes through the intervals between characters, and the spare branches recall a painted plum while retaining the distinct rhythms of cut wood. The catalogue distinguishes an inscription by Ruan Yuan from writing by Zhu Zhe. Composing a text, writing its model and cutting it into wood are separate acts to document.

Fig. 8 · Huanghuali brush pot with plum blossom and verse, naming Ruan Yuan and Zhu Zhe, Qing dynasty

Fig. 9 · Huanghuali brush pot incised with On the Love of the Lotus, Qing dynasty

A second huanghuali pot carries Zhou Dunyi’s On the Love of the Lotus. Its columns require the reader to turn the vessel to continue the text. On a Ming bamboo pot the Goddess of the Luo River appears alongside verse. Moving between image and text allows the reader to ask what the inscription adds to the scene. For a seal-script inscription, photographs from several sides also help resolve characters compressed at the edges of a single view.

Fig. 10 · Bamboo brush pot with the Goddess of the Luo River and verse, Ming dynasty

Fig. 11 · Columns of seal script on the wall of a brush pot

Three treatments of a wooden surface

The huanghuali brush pot with Buddhist venerables measures 19.5 cm both in height and diameter. Its proportions give a procession of figures space to unfold. In two agarwood landscapes the problem shifts from the interval between figures to the depth between rocks. A building half concealed among trees can suggest a distance far greater than the thickness of the wall.

Fig. 12 · Huanghuali brush pot with Buddhist venerables, Qing dynasty

Fig. 13 · Agarwood landscape brush pot, early Qing

Fig. 14 · Carved agarwood landscape brush pot, Qing dynasty

Two zitan flower pots offer a further comparison. On one, petals and leaves emerge in relief from a single piece of wood. On the magnolia pot, inlays distinguish blossoms from their ground through changes of color and substance. The fit of an insert, the meeting of leaf and stem and the dark intervals around the spray all help determine the shape we perceive.

Fig. 15 · Zitan brush pot with flowers in relief, mid-Qing

Fig. 16 · Zitan brush pot with inlaid magnolia, Qing dynasty

Landscape in jade, porcelain and painted enamel

The Qianlong pair of pale and green jade brush pots uses contrasting stone at the rims and bases to frame the landscapes. On the green jade Five Elders, by contrast, figures, bridge and woodland emerge in relief against a ground of the same color. With the pair on a desk, the relation between the two silhouettes becomes part of the design. A photograph of a single face captures only one of these relations.

Fig. 17 · Pair of pale and green jade landscape brush pots with stands, Qianlong period

Fig. 18 · Green jade brush pot with the Five Elders, Qing dynasty

Fig. 19 · Blue-and-white brush pot with reeds, geese and verse, Qing dynasty

On blue-and-white porcelain, washes of cobalt carry reeds and geese across a white surface that can stand for water or sky. A square copper brush pot with painted enamels offers a different rhythm. Its corners divide the design into four faces, each reserve framing a scene of women or mothers and children like a window. The red-ground dragon design also demonstrates how a border defines the main field. Color alone cannot identify its underlying material.

Fig. 20 · Square brush pot with women and children in painted enamel on copper, Qianlong period

Fig. 21 · Dragons in a bordered reserve on a red ground, with a fret below the rim

The imperial desk: a brush pot read by an emperor

A bamboo brush pot in the former Qing palace collection bears the name of Wu Zhifan. The carving shows Liu Hai looking back at the three-legged toad perched on his broom. Turn the pot and another encounter comes into view: an imperial verse dated to 1782 records the Qianlong emperor’s response to the subject. The maker’s mark and the dated verse document distinct moments in the object’s history. Palace Museum collection entry

On a five-lobed carved red lacquer pot, narcissus, osmanthus, plum, chrysanthemum and orchid each occupy a panel beside lines of Qianlong’s poetry. Beside the narcissus, Cao Wenzhi identifies himself as the subject who respectfully wrote out the text. The emperor composed, a court official supplied the calligraphy, and the lacquer carver brought script and flower together. Compare the separate credits for composition and writing on the gallery’s huanghuali plum-blossom pot. At court the wording also makes rank explicit. Palace Museum collection entry

The imperial household participated in production through its workshops. The Palace Museum attributes a copper brush pot with aventurine glass inlays to the glassworks of the Qing Imperial Household Workshops. Metal partitions trace an ice-crack pattern, glass fills the intervals, and gilding finishes the rim and foot. The gallery’s Qianlong painted-enamel pot offers a comparison: a copper body here supports four framed figure paintings. Its pair of pale and green jade landscape pots offers a further way to consider paired display. Such comparisons concern technique and arrangement. A palace provenance for an individual work requires its own documentation. Palace Museum collection entry

Antiquarian taste and good wishes at the desk

A Qing boxwood pot, 13.5 cm high, borrows ornament from Qin and Han bricks. Transferring a design from architectural clay to a small wooden vessel changes its scale and its relation to the hand, while preserving its antiquarian associations. A tin pot juxtaposes chased landscape with maxims on household conduct and bears a Ruan Yuan mark. As on the wooden examples, the wording of a signature matters when distinguishing authorship of a text from the hand that cut it.

Fig. 22 · Boxwood brush pot with Qin and Han brick designs, Qing dynasty

Fig. 23 · Tin brush pot with landscape and household maxims, bearing a Ruan Yuan mark, Qing dynasty

On the Ming huanghuali brush pot catalogued as Rank, Emolument and Ennoblement, the names of a magpie, deer, bee and monkey suggest the words of a wish for office and advancement. Recognizing that rebus calls for an ear for Chinese. Recognizing an Orchid Pavilion gathering calls for familiarity with a story. A reader reaching for a brush might encounter a wish for promotion on one desk and the memory of a poetry gathering on another.

Fig. 24 · Huanghuali brush pot with a rebus for rank and advancement, Ming dynasty

Catalogue and comparative material

Figure captions follow the gallery catalogue where a work can be matched. The seal-script and red-ground dragon examples are described from the photographs. Dimensions and period designations in the text follow the cited entries.