拍品专文
This carving may represent the story of the Han dynasty statesman and traveler, Zhang Qian, floating down the Yangtze river in a boat in the form of a shallow log. This was a popular theme during the late Ming and early Qing period and can be seen in other rhinoceros horn carvings of the period: one in the Shanghai Museum, signed Bao Tiancheng (a Ming dynasty artist), included in the exhibition, Treasures from the Shanghai Museum, 6,000 Years of Chinese Art, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, May - September 1983, Catalogue, no. 21; one from the collection of Dr. Ip Yee included in the exhibition, Ten Centuries of Rhinoceros Horn Carving, International Antiques Fair, Hong Kong, May 12 - 15, 1982, Catalogue, no. 34; and another in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, illustrated by Soame Jenyns, Chinese Art III, New York, 1982, no. 143
Compare, also, the representation of this theme in silver inscribed with a poem and the artist's seal, Bishan, for Zhu Bishan, a silversmith working during the 14th century, from the collection of Lady Percival David, included in the exhibition, Chinese Art under the Mongols: The Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), Cleveland Museum of Art, 1968, Catalogue, no. 37, where the traditional identification of the figure as Zhang Qian is discussed and an alternative identification of Tanyi Zhenren, an important Daoist deity, is suggested
Three more vessels of this design, one carved with an inscription, zai lai hua jia ci, and two seals, Xian and Yu Yuan, are illustrated and discussed by Bo Gyllensvard, "Two Yuan Silver Cups and Their Importance for Dating Some Carvings in Wood and Rhinoceros Horn", B.M.F.E.A, No. 43, Stockholm, 1971, pp. 223-233, pl. 4 and pl. 5. The two cups illustrated are from the collection of H. M. Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden; the cup with the inscription, illustrated in pl. 5, is in the collection of W. Fleisher, Stockholm. Gyllensvard also mentions another vessel of this subject in the king's collection in which Zhang Qian is depicted holding a fly whisk, as in the present example
Compare, also, the representation of this theme in silver inscribed with a poem and the artist's seal, Bishan, for Zhu Bishan, a silversmith working during the 14th century, from the collection of Lady Percival David, included in the exhibition, Chinese Art under the Mongols: The Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), Cleveland Museum of Art, 1968, Catalogue, no. 37, where the traditional identification of the figure as Zhang Qian is discussed and an alternative identification of Tanyi Zhenren, an important Daoist deity, is suggested
Three more vessels of this design, one carved with an inscription, zai lai hua jia ci, and two seals, Xian and Yu Yuan, are illustrated and discussed by Bo Gyllensvard, "Two Yuan Silver Cups and Their Importance for Dating Some Carvings in Wood and Rhinoceros Horn", B.M.F.E.A, No. 43, Stockholm, 1971, pp. 223-233, pl. 4 and pl. 5. The two cups illustrated are from the collection of H. M. Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden; the cup with the inscription, illustrated in pl. 5, is in the collection of W. Fleisher, Stockholm. Gyllensvard also mentions another vessel of this subject in the king's collection in which Zhang Qian is depicted holding a fly whisk, as in the present example