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Shisou
Late Ming bronze caster known for silver-wire inlaid Buddhist figures and vessels marked Shisou, whose real name is unknown
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 The monk Shisou (by one account)
- Roles
- Master Craftsmen
Shisou was a late Ming bronze caster famed for inlaying fine silver wire into bronze; his real name, home and dates are not reliably recorded, and he is variously described as a monk and as a native of Fujian. His figures of Guanyin and Wenchang and his censers and vases trace robe folds and borders in silver wire and carry an inlaid seal-script mark Shisou on the back or base. The Palace Museum, Beijing, holds several silver-inlaid Guanyin figures with his mark dated to the Ming. Because the mark was widely copied from the Qing into modern times, each marked piece has to be judged on its workmanship.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active in the late Ming