A SUPBERLY CARVED AND RARE BAMBOO 'DIVERTED BY A SWALLOW' WRIST RESTZhou Naishi, 1644 – 1722Of irregular form, depicting a bearded scholar with his hair tied in a bun, one bear foot peeking out from beneath his loose fitting robes, seated beside a natural rock table, gazing up at a swallow diving in front of a tall, perforated, natural rock sculpture, signed in engraved seal script,Moshan, followed by one oval seal of the artist in seal script,Zhou, the reverse plain, fitted box.9.2cm (3 5/8in) long (2).Provenance: 1644 – 1722年 竹雕燕子人物圖臂擱「墨山」款Provenance：Christie's Hong Kong, March 1993, lot 547來源：香港佳士得，1993年3月，拍品547Zhou Naishi, zi Wanzhou, hao Moshan, was a native of Jiading, Jiangsu province, active in the Shunzhi and Kangxi periods. He was apparently skilled in painting and calligraphy as well as bamboo carving in the style of the Zhu family. Zhou was fond of carving landscapes, flowers, banana trees and bamboo groves, see L.C.S. Tam, Chinese Bamboo Carving, Part II, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1982, pp.58 and 59.The present lot is a remarkably inspiring example, depicting a magnificent natural rock sculpture and stone table at which a scholar is seated painting, having put down his brush half way through a painting of a landscape scene to gaze up at a diving swallow as it approaches the scholar.Wrist rests were a staple of the bamboo carver's art because of the suitability of the material, where any segment of the cylindrical culm, provides a perfect, curved wrist rest to protect a line of just-written characters while it dries and the next line is written. They are relatively rare, however, where the design provides the irregular contour of the rest itself, as opposed to the moremon rectangular, curved section upon which decoration is carved, either in relief or by engraving a 'painting' onto the bamboo surface.Another irregular, but unsigned wrist rest of similar design, also with a man looking up at a swallow flying past a rock, is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Masterpieces of Chinese Writing Materials in the National Palace Museum, Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1971, no. 44.周乃始，字萬周，號墨山，江蘇嘉定人，活躍於順治、康熙年間， 精通書畫竹刻，風格師承朱氏（「嘉定三朱」），刻山水、花卉、芭蕉、叢竹尤其出衆，參考譚志成，《中國竹刻藝術》，第二冊，香港藝術館，1982年，頁58及59。 臂擱是竹雕藝術的重要部份，由於竹片肚壁拱起，特別適合製成臂擱，拱起處可以承托手腕，避免手臂沾染字墨，讓剛寫好的書法有時間風乾而無需暫停書寫。然而，竹雕臂擱形狀拱起部份多數呈矩形，表面以浮雕或「繪畫」手法雕刻紋飾，如本品般雕刻成不規則形狀的作例則遠為少見，本品刻劃文士坐於石桌之前，背後天然岩石嶙峋奇偉，...