Lot 117

Lot 117
Treasury 4, no. 667
HK$156,000

Sparrows in a Bamboo Grove

Crystal, ink, and watercolours; with a concave lip and recessed, slightly convex foot surrounded by a protruding convex footrim; the cylindrical form carved to simulate the stem of a bamboo plant, close to the ground, with small groups of leaves sprouting from it; painted inside with a continuous composition of a pair of sparrows in a bamboo grove, some of the leaves colouring in those carved on the outside of the bottle, inscribed in draft script, ‘Executed by Wang Xisan in the first month of the year bingchen at Yihu zhai (One Bottle Studio)’, with two seals, chun (spring) in positive seal script preceding the inscription, and one seal of the artist, Xisan, in negative seal script following it
Bottle: 1760–1880
Painting: Wang Xisan, One Bottle Studio, Hengshui, Hebei province, 1976
Height: 6.87 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.70/1.78 cm
Stopper: glass; vinyl collar

Lot 117 Provenance:
Zhirou Zhai Collection
Hugh M. Moss, Ltd (1993)

Published:
Kleiner 1995, no. 435
Treasury 4, no. 667

Exhibited:
British Museum, London, June–November 1995
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, July–November 1997
Christie’s, London, 1999

Lot 117 Commentary
This is another of Wang’s superbly interpreted earlier, plain bottles, and in this case a very unusual one at that. It is carved to simulate a bamboo culm, close to the ground. We can be sure of this, because the sort of bamboo depicted here grows with the distance between nodes increasing away from the roots. From the nodes carved on the outer bottle grow smaller branches with a few leaves. Wang has followed the outer design, but augmented it by adding extra painted leaves where there were none carved, and then, with a stroke of genius, he has added three more mature bamboo stems arising beyond the leaves. The ambiguity of this does not register at first, since the two sparrows complete the lovely scene of two birds in a bamboo grove, but in fact the whole thing is, of course, contained within the form of a single stem of bamboo, which would be visually impossible. Somehow, Wang has managed to pull this incongruity off with perfect naturalness, creating one of his finest interpretations of an old bottle.

This is one of a number of bottles that prove that whatever the threats to Wang Xisan’s art over the years, he was always capable of rising to the occasion and producing a masterpiece both technically and artistically. It is not only well conceived as an idea, but extremely well executed, particularly in the brushwork and the subtle toning of the colours.

To paint bamboo well is to master all of the different strokes of calligraphy and for that reason it was a common and popular subject among literati painters. It allowed them to show off their mastery while, at the same time, bringing painting and calligraphy closer together. Here Wang has used an unusual brushwork mode to achieve his bamboo leaves. As a rule, in later Chinese painting the elegant strokes of the bamboo leaves are left to speak for themselves, usually in ink and water alone, and the modulation and changes of direction of the brush are all that are needed to depict bamboo blowing and twisting in the breeze. Here Wang has superimposed darker lines to indicate veining upon these single-stroke leaves. This is an ideal way to depict the bamboo in a miniature art form where the artist is a close observer of reality. Had Wang learned only from his tradition, he would have been unlikely to have painted them in this way, which hints at the reality of the markings on a bamboo leaf, rather than their formal dance in the breeze. Learning also from nature at every turn, he has, again, combined the tradition with his observations and come up with an elegant balance. This same close observation of nature is also apparent in the painting of the two birds which are certainly among the finest sparrows ever painted inside a bottle if closely observed realism is our criterion.