Makers › Master Craftsmen
Pu Zhongqian
Late Ming bamboo carver of Nanjing who shaped gnarled bamboo roots with minimal cutting and was later named founder of the Jinling school
A craft workshop centres on a potter's wheel holding a tall celadon vase, amid racks of red lacquer boxes, an embroidery frame with a floral design, shelves of celadon ware, carved wooden panels and stacked logs, while one craftsman works at a table and another stands at a glowing kiln.
Also known as Ming Cheng · Zi Zhongqian
- Roles
- Master Craftsmen
Pu Zhongqian, personal name Cheng, known by his courtesy name, came from Jinling, present-day Nanjing, and worked in the Wanli to Tianqi years. The Chuyuelou jianwen lu describes him as rustic in speech and looks, seemingly helpless, yet with a skill beyond nature: he liked to take bamboo roots in their own twisted forms and merely scrape and polish them into objects, which fetched high prices. The Qing writer Jin Yuanyu's Records of Bamboo Carvers set him up as the head of a line separate from the Zhus of Jiading, later called the Jinling school. The Palace Museum in Beijing holds his small pine-tree pot and a brush holder carved with bamboo sprays, and the Qianlong emperor wrote poems on his pieces.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active c. Wanli–Tianqi reigns (1573–1627)