Makers › Master Craftsmen
Feng Xijue
Kangxi-era bamboo carver of Jiading, elder brother of Feng Xilu, whose cabbage-shaped brush pot is in the Palace Museum
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 Zi Jinhou
- Roles
- Master Craftsmen
Feng Xijue, courtesy name Jinhou, came from a family of bamboo carvers in Jiading, now part of Shanghai, and with his younger brothers Xilu and Xizhang was known as one of the 'three legs of the tripod'. Jiading carving had been founded by the three generations of Zhu He, Zhu Ying and Zhu Zhizheng; the Feng brothers carried it on in the Kangxi reign and were especially skilled at carving figures and objects in the round from bamboo root. The Palace Museum holds his brush pot carved from a bamboo root in the form of a cabbage with natural-looking veins, and the three brothers together carved a brush pot of the Drunken Concubine Yang.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active in the Kangxi reign