DIMENSIONS

Diameter: 7 ⅜ inches

 

PROVENANCE

Ben Janssens Oriental Art, London, 1999

 

CATALOGUE NOTES

A large covered bowl, the body and cover both painted in the "Master of the Rocks" style. The body shows a lively scene of a lady surrounded by dao ma ren, an assemblage of figures with horses and swords. On the shallow domed cover, seven scholars are gathered on a terrace with their servants, surrounded by pine trees, bamboo and rocks. They are enjoying scholarly accomplishments; one of them inscribes a rock, which can be considered as the elegant ancestral version of graffiti, while his servant holds up an inkstone. The unmarked base is glazed and has many pinholes.