Lot 1122
Treasury 7, no. 1719 (‘The Lanting Handicap’)
HK$56,250

Bamboo; made from three segments (body, neck and shoulders, and foot), with a flat lip and recessed flat foot surrounded by a broad flat foot rim; carved around the body with a continuous design of the Lanting gathering, set in a rocky landscape with two fast-moving streams between rocky banks, with forty-four scholars and four young attendants engaged in a poetry-writing competition either as participants or spectators, the streams with cups of wine floating down them, the shoulders with bands of formalized leaves; the neck with a band of continuous leiwen (thunder pattern)
Yaji 雅集 Master, Japan, 1854–1920
Height: 6.62 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.62/2.3 cm
Stopper: bamboo, carved with confronting bats, with integral collar and cork; original

Provenance:
Hartman Trading Co., New York (1959)
Gerd Lester (1986)

Published:
Kleiner 1987, no. 219
Treasury 7, no. 1719

Exhibited:
Sydney L. Moss Ltd, London, October 1987
Creditanstalt, Vienna, May–June 1993

On its own, without any tell-tale apocryphal mark, this bottle might be taken for Chinese. Stylistic links to other examples, however, prove beyond a doubt that it is Japanese, and the style of carving and choice of subject matter link it to the Yaji Master (see under Sale 2, lot 144 and Sale 4, lot 61). Quite apart from the similarity in style, there are several other features of this bottle that would suggest a Japanese origin. Sectional manufacture was not unknown on organic materials in China, but it was usually dictated by the material (for example, coconut shell), not by hollowing concerns. In late-nineteenth century Japan, however, sectional manufacture was a convenience that made hollowing very much easier to achieve. Many Japanese snuff bottles have separate necks or bases, allowing for easier access for hollowing; this one has both. The shoulders and neck on the top and the entire foot on the bottom are made from different segments of bamboo. They have been so well fitted and the joins so well disguised that it would not be physically obvious were it not for the fact that the grain of the bamboo differs radically at the join. The typical elongated grain of the plant, resulting in a series of speckled dots when it is cut through at right angles to the grain, is extremely hard to match up perfectly if using different segments. In fact, despite the care taken to disguise the joins by minimizing the gap between them, no attempt has been made to match the grains here. The grain of the shoulders goes in a direction quite different from that of the body, while the foot is made from a segment with an offshoot of root or branch that terminates abruptly, cut halfway through where it meets the lower body.

Quite apart from the Japanese constructional method, the shoulder decoration of formalized leaves is stylistically more Japanese than Chinese in the way the leaves are varied in size to fit between the circular neck and the oval shoulder panel. Another indication that it is not Chinese is found in the misunderstanding of the subject matter. Depicted is the famous gathering at the Lanting 蘭亭(Orchid Pavilion) in 353 AD, when forty-two scholars gathered for a Spring Purification Festival, inspiring Wang Xizhi 王羲之 (c. 307–c. 365) to write his ‘Lanting Preface’ for the poems they composed; it is one of the most famous pieces of literature in the Chinese culture. (See Sale 1, lot 28 for a translation by Lin Yutang.) In Chinese depictions, the scholars are shown seated on either side of a single, narrow, gently flowing stream with cups of wine floating on cup-stands past scholars lined up on each bank. As a rule, a single pavilion is shown, the Orchid Pavilion itself, in which Wang Xizhi is seated composing his preface while the other scholars play their poetry/drinking game. Here, the Japanese carver has set the scene on two separate streams, one running down each side of the bottle, added two extra pavilions, both with scholars seated in them, and depicted the streams so fast-flowing that the floating cups would have sunk before they could have inspired anyone to greater creativity. The depiction also seems to include forty-four scholars and four servants, although on this scale it is possible to mistake the one for the other; his number may be accurate but his depiction of servants somewhat misleading. Also entirely absent are the bamboo groves that are traditionally associated with the subject, growing along both sides of the stream. One final problem is that even if the cups were lucky enough to survive the roiling torrent, the banks are far too steep to allow the servants to reach them from the rocky shore and lift them out for their masters to drink.

Setting aside the interpretation of the subject, the carving, as on this artist’s other works, is impressive, as always, and this is one of his rarer works in bamboo. Other bamboo bottles by him are in Sotheby’s, London, 2 July 1984, lot 81 (with a scholar seated in a waterside pavilion); Hamilton 1977, p. 22, no. O-118; and Sotheby’s, New York, 15 March 1984, lot 132 (in horn). One that helps with dating this artist’s works is in JICSBS, Summer 1987, p. 5, fig. 2, from the Edmund C. Converse Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has been in the museum since 1921, and Converse may have owned it for some years before that date. It is decorated with the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, is of the same shape, and also has its original matching stopper.

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.