AN EXQUISITE AND RARE BAMBOO 'CRANES' WRIST RESTGuan Xining, dated Qianlong cyclicaljihai year, corresponding to 1779Elegantly engraved with a design of a crane flying in front of drifting clouds, inscribed in running script with a couplet related to the subject, followed by another inscriptionQianlong jihai chunri, Pingyuan Guan Xining ('On a spring day in thejihai year of the Qianlong reign, Guan Xining of Pingyuan'), with one seal of the artist, Xining, in seal script, the bamboo patinated to a yellowish-brown colour, with a brocade fitted bag and a Japanese wood box.17.4cm (6 7/8in) long (3).Provenance: 乾隆己亥年（1779年） 竹刻鶴去雲歸圖臂擱「管希寧」款Provenance:Fuhakudō Collection, probably 1870sYamamoto ChikuunBrian Harkins, London, July 2006來源:不白堂舊藏，或入藏於1870年代山本竹雲舊藏倫敦Brian Harkins，2006年7月The inscription on the cover reads Chokku unkaku chasoku ('Bamboo Carved Crane in Clouds Tea Measure'), followed by the name of a tea house founded in 1791 in Edo (later Tokyo), Fubaku dō 不白堂. The inside of the cover inscribed in running script, Kibōsai kenbōgetsu gekan kan o Naniwa jikyaku ('Viewed while staying in Osaka during the third decade of the second month of the year jimao' 己卯歲建卯月下浣觀於浪花客次), corresponding to 13-22 March 1879.Yamamoto Chikuun 山本竹雲 (1826-1894) was the late Bakamatsu and Meiji eras classical Chinese scholar, and eminent seal carver and tea master, whose judgment of tea ceremony utensils was considered authoritative. His given name was Hoko戈, and his personal name was Chūritsu中立.The Fuhakuryū 不白流 is a tea school within the Omote Senke 表千家 school of tea. The founder, Kawagami Fuhaku 川上不白 (1719-1807) established this branch school in Edo (present-day Tokyo) in 1750. It is still a large and thriving organisation. One of its most famous tea ceremony rooms, the Fuhakudō 不白堂 was constructed in 1781. The name of the tea room on the box indicates that this wrist rest pressed into duty as a tea scoop once was one of the treasured implements of that tea room. However, when the tea ceremony building became so dilapidated that it became unusable in the 1870s, its treasures, some of which, at least, were dispersed. It was then that Yamamoto Chikuun probably acquired the wrist rest/tea scoop.Guan Xining (1712-1785), a native of Jiangdu (present-day Yangzhou, Jiangsu), prepared for the official examination when young but abandoned studies due to chronic ill health, but continued casual reading in history and philosophy, as well as studying inscriptions on metal and stone. He was an especially keen student of calligraphy and painting. His landscape paintings exhibit cool and secluded brushwork, and the flowering plants sketched in them are rendered especially well with a free and easy quality that transcends themonplace. His written works include a Jinniu shanren yinpu (Seal Impressions Album by the Recluse of Bronze Ox Mountain) and Jiuniou zhai shiji (Poetry Collection from the Timidity will do Studio ). During the 50th year of