Lot 207
Treasury 4, no. 651 (‘The Mysterious Ping Bo’an’)
HK$50,000

Flawless crystal, ink, and watercolours; with a concave lip and a recessed flat foot surrounded by a protruding flattened footrim; painted on one main side with a landscape after the style of Zhou Leyuan, with a foreground grassy mound with two pines and two other trees in front of an open thatched pavilion on a rocky promontory towards which a scholar strolls, holding a staff, all overlooking an expanse of water fed by a waterfall that tumbles from a stream meandering out of the distant hills, which are shrouded in mist, with hilltops and distant peaks beyond, the other main side with a natural rock sculpture and a sprig of blossoming prunus, inscribed in draft script, 'Executed with an untrammelled brush, this curious stone unique, in the year wuchen, four days before “Rain Water” , for the pure appreciation of Borong, a senior acquaintance,’ with the signature Pingbo an zuo (Made by Pingbo an), and one seal of the artist, yin (‘seal’), in negative seal script
Bottle: 1750–1880
Painting: Ye family, the Apricot Grove Studio, Chongwen district, Beijing, mid-February, 1928
Height: 6.38 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.54/1.72 and 1.62 cm (oval)
Stopper: jadeite; vinyl collar

Provenance:
William Bruce (by inheritance)
Robert Kleiner (1990)

Published:
Robert Kleiner and Co. 1990, no. 78
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 364
Treasury 4, no. 651

Exhibited:
Hong Kong Museum of Art, March–June 1994
National Museum, Singapore, November 1994–February 1995
Christie's, London, 1999

We believe Ping Bo’an was probably a patron of the Ye family who asked to have his name added as the maker of the bottle. One other bottle with his name was published by Moss in 1984 (JICSBS, Spring 1984, p. 72, figs. 209a and 209b). Dated 1929, it is inscribed, as this one is, in the typical calligraphic style of the Ye family, and the inscription does not say ‘executed by Ping Bo’an,’ as it does here, but ‘presented by Ping Bo’an’.

This is extremely well painted in the style of Zhou Leyuan, and might be a later work by Ye Zhongsan. According to Bengqi, however, his elder brother, Ye Xiaofeng, was also well trained to do this sort of Zhou Leyuan-style landscape, and since Ye Bengzhen, whose style we cannot isolate, was still alive in 1928, it would be premature to attempt to attribute this particular work to a particular family member.

The side with landscape is a standard Zhou painting, but adapted to Ye’s later style, with the figure enlarged, the landscape elements rendered in a rather even, pale range of tones that flatten the whole rendition out to a greater extent than Zhou would have allowed, and the colours of figures, grassy promontory, and thatched hut a little more obvious than Zhou’s. On the other side, the original influence is still Zhou Leyuan, with a typical natural rock sculpture from one of his many still-life scenes of auspicious objects isolated from the usual company of tripod vessels, vases of flowers, and so forth, and joined just by a spray of flowering prunus.

‘Rain Water’, the term used to specify the date here, is the second of the twenty-four ‘nodes’ of the year, which help keep track of the solar year (the lunar calendar being useless for agriculture); in 1928 it fell on 20 February.

This is not the Sotheby’s sale catalogue. This is a product of Hugh Moss for the purposes of this website. For the catalogue details please refer to Sotheby’s website or request a copy of a printed sale catalogue from Sotheby’s.