The front of the circular ink cake finely carved in relief with a flock of magpies mid-flight, the reverse with a sixteen-line poem titled ‘On Ding Nanyu’s Painting of A Hundred Magpies’, followed by a rectangular seal ‘Cheng Youbo’. The side of the cake is carved with the characters Tianqi yuannian Cheng Junfang zhi, ‘made by Cheng Junfang in the first year of the Tianqi reign’.
An important dated and inscribed ‘magpie and prunus’ ink cake (Tianqi first year, corresponding to 1621 and of the period)
Description
Dimensions: 12cm diameter (with fitted box)
Provenance:
The family collection of Ohno Sekisai, a calligrapher in Tohoku region of Japan, acquired around 1970s
Christie’s Hong Kong ‘The Imperial Sale’, 28 May 2014, lot 3586
A private Dutch collection
The front of the circular ink cake finely carved in relief with a flock of magpies mid-flight, the reverse with a sixteen-line poem titled ‘On Ding Nanyu’s Painting of A Hundred Magpies’, followed by a rectangular seal ‘Cheng Youbo’. The side of the cake is carved with the characters Tianqi yuannian Cheng Junfang zhi, ‘made by Cheng Junfang in the first year of the Tianqi reign’.
