Bamboo carving depicting paradise flycatchers on a plum tree. 18th century.

Bamboo carving depicting paradise flycatchers on a plum tree. 18th century.

• Image Number: K1G000004N000000000PAE
• Dynasty: Qing dynasty
• Category: Carvings
• Function: Stationery
• Material: Plants/Bamboo/
• Description:
  The whole instrument takes a section of thick bamboo’s underground stem, and makes a round sculpture of two ribbon birds perching on the trunk of the plum tree. The two birds look at each other from top to bottom, and their beaks are connected. On the branches, plum blossoms are either in full bloom or in bud, and chrysanthemums, peonies, etc. are scattered around the trunk. “Plum” is homophonic to “eyebrow”. The ribbon bird is also called “Longevity Belt”, which is collectively called “Meishou”. The eyebrows of ordinary people in their old age are often covered with luxuriant hair, so they are called “eyebrow longevity”. In The Book of Songs Bin Feng July, there is a saying: “To introduce the eyebrows to longevity”. In the early Qing Dynasty, there was a system of bamboo carving in Jiading, which was to take the underground stems of bamboo and “carve figures, mountains and rivers, fruits and flowers according to their merits, twists and turns, and shallowness”. Later, it gradually developed to produce standing sculpture works with auspicious meanings. After bamboo people selected and measured materials, they played their swords. They always had to be ingenious to carve works that would appeal to both refined and popular tastes. As far as Jiading in the late Qing Dynasty, bamboo people called this kind of works, which were made of bamboo stems on the ground, into pen containers, poem containers, cigarette stacks or arm rests, “small pieces”; The round sculpture of bamboo underground stems into figures, animals and plants and other three-dimensional works is called “big piece”, also known as “piece head”. He also called it “Huida Dao” to carve large pieces and “Huixiao Dao” to carve small pieces.