This large Chinese blue and white stoneware brush pot was hand-painted with a continuous landscape depicting a series of related figural scenes with trees, a river and bridge, mountain peaks, clouds, and a cart.
Measuring an impressive 9.5 inches high and 10.75 inches in diameter, it is heavily potted, with substantial weight and unusually generous proportions. Its generous proportions also make it well suited for use as a planter.
The brush pot is painted in richly varied underglaze cobalt, ranging from deep saturated blue to softer washes.
The continuous scene follows a traveling party through a mountainous landscape, with the figures arranged in separate episodes, connected by a wheeled cart, a bridge, a river, trees, and drifting clouds.
The broad cylindrical form, continuous figural narrative, and incised borders deliberately recall the large narrative brush pots made during the Transitional period (1620 to 1683), a style revived with particular confidence on this brush pot in 1878.
A small full moon appears in the sky above two of the figures, adding a particularly poetic note to the composition.
One side bears a vertical Chinese inscription that includes the cyclical date Wuyin (戊寅).
It translates to: “Painted in the spring of the Wuyin year at the Five Trees Studio.”
Based on the painting’s style and form the likely date is 1878, during the Guangxu period.
The pot’s large cylindrical form, scholarly landscape, and inscription are characteristic of the Chinese brush pot, or bitong, an object made for the scholar’s table to hold calligraphy brushes.
With its exceptional scale, extensive hand-painted landscape, figural narrative, and dated inscription, this is an exciting example of late 19th-century Chinese blue and white stoneware.
Dimensions: Height: 9.5 in. Diameter: 10.75 in.
Condition: Excellent