Huanghuali scroll pot

A massive huanghuali scroll pot, the sides roughly cylindrical but slightly wasted, rising up from a rounded base ring with slightly recessed base section that has a central roundel.  The material is nicely figured and several characteristic “faces” can be seen in the grain.

This magnificent holder is too large for brushes, so it was most probably made to store rolled-up scroll paintings. Rebecca Rice Jones and Angus Forsyth describe a very similar pot from the Piccus collection, included in an exhibition at the Altfield Gallery in Hong Kong in 1984, as a “brush pot or scroll holder”[1]

1    Rice Jones, R and Forsyth, A.: Wood from the Scholar’s Table, Chinese Hardwood Carvings and Scholar’s Articles, Altfield Gallery, Hong Kong 1984, plate 29, pp. 62-3.

明/剔红玉兰花纹粉盒

此盒圆形，卧足，子母口，上下等分。其表面整体厚髹红漆，仅底足内髹黑漆。红漆部分雕玉兰花一朵，并以其为中心雕大量枝叶。雕工深入细致，打磨圆润。