FOUR SCHOLAR'S TABLE OBJECTS
Qing dynasty
A large black steatite vase of tall irregular rectangular shape, intricately carved to one of the two main sides with a twisted trunk of a prunus tree, snaking upwards with blossom depicted throughout, the reverse side with the original uneven irregular surface, an integral stand is carved to the base in the simple northern style; together with a yellow wax rock, of irregular ovoid outline and orange toned, an almost perfect circle perforation to the upper part and an irregular hole to the lower part, dark craters on the surface contrast with the color of the stone, a southern-openwork-style wood stand; a bloodstone seal of flattened oval shape with slanting top and seal to the base; and a Guangzhou (Canton) enameled yellow-ground egg-shaped vessel and hinged cover, probably an etui, painted with various figures and inscriptions on hanging and fruit-shaped panels, the interior white enameled.
Steatite tall vase: 11 13/16in (30cm) high; wax rock: 5 1/2in (13.9cm) high, with wood stand; bloodstone seal: 3in (7.6cm) high; enameled vessel: 2 1/2in (7cm) high (4).
Footnotes:
清 文房清供一組四件
含 黑滑石刻梅樹紋隨形花插、黃蠟石隨形擺件、昌化雞血石《一抹殘霞 數行新雁》印及銅胎琺瑯彩卵形蓋盒

Provenance:
The black steatite vase and the yellow wax rock: Ian and Susan Wilson, San Francisco
The enameled Egg-shaped vessel: Gerard Hawthorn, London, 2005

Published:
The black steatite vase and the yellow wax rock: Nicholas Grindley, Ian and Susan Wilson Collection of Scholars' Rocks, Berkeley, 2009, no. 85 and no. 82
The enameled Egg-shaped vessel: Gerard Hawthorn, Summer 2005, no. 67

Exhibited:
The enameled Egg-shaped vessel: Gerard Hawthorn, Summer 2005

來源：
黑滑石花插及黃蠟石：威爾遜伉儷（Ian & Susan Wilson）舊藏，舊金山
琺瑯彩卵形蓋盒：好善簃主人（Gerard Hawthorn）舊藏，倫敦，2005年

出版：
黑滑石花插及黃蠟石：Nicholas Grindley, 《怪石》, 伯克利，2009年，圖版85及82
琺瑯彩卵形蓋盒：好善簃主人（Gerard Hawthorn）, 《2005年夏》圖錄，圖版67

展覽：
琺瑯彩卵形蓋盒：好善簃主人（Gerard Hawthorn）, 《2005年夏》

The two-line four-character inscription of the blood-stone seal, yimo canyang, shuhang xinyan (a dapple of broken rosy clouds; several rows of newly arrived wide geese) is adapted from a ci lyric Shuangtoulian (Double-head Lotus) by the famous Northern Song official scholar Zhou Bangyan (1056-1121). A seal of the same inscription by a Qing dynasty carver named Gu Peiliang is recorded in Feihongtang Yinpu (Records of Seals Collected by the Feihongtang) edited by Wang Qishu (1728-1799).

Michael Gillingham illustrates another etui painted in 'famille-rose' colors on a white ground in Chinese Painted Enamels, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1978, pp. 85, no. 113 where he suggests that this example was originally fitted (probably in Europe) with necessaires such as knives, bodkins, tweezers and scissors.
This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: ¤
¤ Without reserve