CHINA, QING DYNASTY, 18TH-19TH CENTURY

This rare brush rest is testament to the skill and sensitivity displayed by the jade carvers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Carved in the form of a miniature scene of figures crossing a bridge, but functionable as a brush rest, this piece represents a microcosm of everyday life upon which the user could meditate while going about scholarly activities. Although several comparable examples of white jade bridge-form brush rests exist within museum collections, there appear to be no published examples with spinach-green jade base representing the river. One other known example with a spinach-green base, but of somewhat larger size (8 ½ in. long overall), was sold at Christie's, Paris, 12 December 2018, lot 117. See, also, a white jade bridge-shaped brush rest in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 42 - Jadeware (III), Hong Kong, 1995, p. 195, no. 159. Another brush rest, of a size similar to that of the present example, also in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Zhongguo yuqi quanji, vol. 6, Hebei, 1991, p. 200, no. 286.