A rare ivory and mother-of-pearl-embellished huanghuali brush pot, bitong


18th centuryThe cylindrical vessel intricately inlaid with stained ivory, mother-of-pearl and hardstone pieces, depicting magpies and grasshoppers perched on leafy gnarled branches and floral sprays beside rocky outcrops, beneath flying butterflies. 14.3cm (5 5/8in) high.
|十八世紀 黃花梨嵌百寶花石圖筆筒Provenance: H.G.Beasley (1881-1939), acquired on 5 October 1925, and thence by descent來源： H.G.Beasley先生(1881-1939)收藏，購於1925年10月5日；並由後人保存迄今Harry Geoffrey Beasley was a wealthy brewery owner whose private collecting passion began when, aged 13, he bought two Solomon Island clubs. In 1914 he was elected to the Royal Anthropological Institute with which he maintained an association until 1937. He and his wife, Irene, established the Cranmore Ethnographic Museum in Chislehurst, Kent where they had moved in 1928, compiling the Cranmore Index of Pacific Material Culture based on James Edge-Partington's Index for the British Museum and forming a considerable library. Although the Beasleys collected artifacts worldwide – including Africa (particularly Benin), North-west America and Asia - their main focus was the Pacific. Objects were acquired from dealers, missionaries and from, or in exchanges with, various museums. Beasley's comprehensive monograph on Oceanic fish-hooks was published in 1928. The Cranmore Museum was damaged by bombing in World War 2 and in accordance with Beasley's will his widow, Irene M Beasley (q.v), offered the first selection of the collection (apart from a limited reservation for herself) as a donation to the British Museum. The gift of several thousand items became fully effective in 1944. Other named beneficiaries include the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford; The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge; and National Museums, Scotland.The present lot encapsulates the skill of Qing craftsmen in inlaying a complex variety of semi-precious coloured stones into a rich huanghuali section. Compare with a related hardstone-inlaid zitan brush pot, mid Qing dynasty, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures in the Palace Museum: Bamboo, Wood, Ivory and Rhinoceros Horn Carvings, Hong Kong, 2002, p.291, pl.236.A related hardstone and mother-of-pearl-inlaid huanghuali brush pot, 16th/17th century, was sold at Christie's Hong Kong on 2 December 2015, lot 3472.