Each buckle of rectangular shape finishing in a quadrilobed loop. The buckles are delicately engraved, with contrasting colours in the bamboo, in a very pictorial style reminding the Chinese traditional paintings. One of the buckle depicting a scholar and his attendant in a rocky lansdscape, the other one showing a scholar looking at a crane.

The depiction of characters in celestial mountains, with a crane, the mount of the immortals, refers to the daoist tradition.

The refined style of these buckles also refers to the scholar’s plain ideal.

Traditionnally it is considered that bamboo carving began in the Sung dynasty (960-1279). It was in the Ming dynasty that the interest of the scholar class was deepened and be subsequently passed to the Qing dynasty. The 18th century, in particular the reign of emperor Qianlong (1735-1796), was a period of activity and high artistic achievement in the production of bamboo works of art.