WINTER EXHIBITION 2008 - Roger Keverne

118 ROGER KEVERNE WINTER 2008
95
A pair of very fine jade brushes
18th century
Length: 7D in, 18.3 cm
each of plain, cylindrical form with a convex tip and a swollen, globular base, hollowed for
the insertion of the hair. The semi-translucent stone is a fine, even greenish-white tone.
Formerly in a Western private collection.
Seemingly simple, the creation of a perfect cylinder in jade would probably have been a
difficult task, and such brushes were almost certainly made for imperial use.
A very similar, slightly smaller brush is illustrated in Ip, Chinese Jade Carving, no. 269,
pp. 286–7. For other related examples, see Chan, The Life of Emperor Qianlong, no. 63.11,
a pair; The Four Treasures of the Study – Inksticks and Writing Brushes: The Complete
Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, no. 174, p. 195; Knight, He and Bartholomew,
Chinese Jades: Ming Dynasty to Early Twentieth Century, From the Asian Art Museum of San
Francisco, no. 94, p. 118; and Zhang, Jadeware (II): The Complete Collection of Treasures of
the Palace Museum, no. 208, p. 248, a pair.