Expert’s note: Broad vessels of this type with large, flat bases were often used as brushwashers, to clean the brush and to add water to an inked brush for toning. The present lot also has a lip suitable for 'pointing' and controlling the amount of water left in the brush. Its pleasingly tactile surface would have suited the subtle and refined tastes of a scholar.

China. Delicately carved and well hollowed with deep rounded sides rising from a short broad oval foot and shallow recessed base to a slightly incurved rim, the interior intricately worked in high relief with a sprig of begonia bearing flowers, buds, and leaves. The exterior neatly incised with a basket weave design below the rope-twist rim.

The translucent stone is of a very pale celadon-white tone with cloudy inclusions.

Condition: Superb condition with minimal wear and few near-invisible natural fissures.

Provenance:
-The Contents of Bois Doré, the Property of the late Elinor Dorrance Ingersoll
-Christie’s New York, 27-28 September 1977.
-A private collection in the United States, acquired from the above.
-Christie’s New York, 23 February 1982, lot 564.
-A private collection in Montreux, Switzerland, acquired from the above.

Copies of a signed invoice from Christie, Manson & Woods International Inc., dated 4 March 1982, and the catalog listing from 23 February 1982, both confirming the dating above, accompany this lot.

Elinor Winifred Dorrance Hill Ingersoll (1907-1977) was a director of the Campbell Soup Company and president of the Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island. Elinor was educated at Westfield Friends School and Agnes Irwin School in Paris. She worked in one of the company's soup plants in Camden for several months before her first marriage in 1927 to stockbroker Nathaniel P. Hill. He died in 1965, and she remarried vice admiral, Stuart H. Ingersoll in 1968. She was also a trustee of the Newport Hospital, the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design and the Campbell Historical Museum. After her death her mansion Bois Doré in Newport, Rhode Island, was sold to the oil heiress Carolyn Mary Skelly.

Weight: 249.7 g
Dimensions: Length 11.5 cm

The even white tone of the present lot is a hallmark of early to mid-Qing Imperial jades, during a time where lapidaries worked by Imperial command striving to create small items of the purest white jade, which began in the Yongzheng period, marking the transition from the mottled pebbles of the Ming dynasty to the flawless white vessels of the Qianlong reign. Another characteristic of this group exhibited by the present lot is the exceptional polish, creating a smooth, somewhat ‘oily’ surface with an unctuous feel and lustrous appearance, the latter especially when sunrays shine through the material.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Related
Auction: Sotheby’s London, 10 May 2017, lot 114
Price: GBP 52,500 or approx. EUR 88,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A white jade brushwasher, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period
Expert remark: Compare the related stone and manner of carving with similar flowering begonia and very pale celadon-white tone.