Kangxi|The cylindrical vessel finely rendered in shallow relief around the exterior with a continuous scene of two elegantly coiffed ladies reading in a rocky outdoor setting beneath a wutong and pine tree with a scaly trunk and twisting branches, a lady attendant beyond a plantain tree brings another book towards the couple seated among a table with teapot, tripod incense burner, and brush pot containing a fly-whisk and lingzhi fungus, the bamboo of reddish-brown tone with darker brown areas, ink signature underneath. 14cm (5 1/2in) high |清康熙 竹雕二喬伴讀筆筒Provenance: a German private collection, and thence by descent來源： 德國私人收藏，並由後人保存迄今The two ladies carved on the brush pot most probably refer to the two Qiao daughters (Eastern Han dynasty). They were both immortalised as beauties in the Ming dynasty historical novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In the novel, the strategist and emissary Zhuge Liang attempted to persuade the warlord Sun Quan to ally himself with his lord Liu Bei against Cao Cao. To provoke him into the alliance, Zhuge Liang claimed that Cao Cao desired the two Qiao daughters (both of whom were connected to the Sun clan by marriage). The resulting alliance led to the famous battle at the Red Cliffs. The elegantly elongated form of the ladies and unusual rock formations, as well as the finely-delineated knots and grain on the trees, suggest that this design was influenced by woodblock prints in the style of the Ming dynasty painter Chen Hongshou 陳洪綬 (1598-1652). For the influence of Chen Hongshou prints on bamboo carving, see Wen C.Fong and J.C.Y.Watt, Possessing the Past: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, New York, 1996, pp.464-467.For brush pots carved with similar motifs, see one from the Simon Kwan collection, included in the exhibition Ming and Qing Bamboo, Hong Kong, 2000, no.35; another in the collection of B.S.McElney, is illustrated by Ip Yee and L.C.S.Tam, Chinese Bamboo Carving, Hong Kong, 1978, vol.1, pl.35. See also a brush pot carved with two ladies reading together in a garden setting, in the collection of the Shanghai Museum, first half of the 17th century, illustrated by Chu-Tsing Li and J.C.Y.Watt, The Chinese Scholar's Studio: Artistic Life in the Late Ming Period, New York, 1987, no.55.