Page 230 - Christie's Hong Kong November 29, 2022 Fine Chinese Works of Art

3049
AN INSCRIBED GILT-DECORATED
SPINACH-GREEN JADE ‘LUOHAN’
DOUBLE-SIDED PLAQUE
QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)
The plaque is finely incised and gilt on one side with the Angaja
luohan seated cross-legged on a rock holding a sutra, below an
Imperial poem, five seal marks, and the name of the Buddhist
disciple. The reverse with another luohan standing under a palm tree
with a flask in his right hand from which emerges a small figure of
Buddha seated on a lotus base, adjacent to a stag holding a lingzhi
spray in its mouth.
8Ω in. (21.7 cm.) long

HK$800,000-1,200,000 US$110,000-150,000

清乾隆 碧玉描金雙面御製詩文羅漢圖插屏

Jade books were highly sumptuous items made only for the most
important rituals or investitures of emperors. During the Qianlong period,
however, jade books were also made for the pleasure of the Qianlong
Emperor, in part due to his fascination with jade, and in part due to the
increase in supply of the material following the pacification of the Xinjiang
area in 1759.
The present jade plaque depicts on each side an arhat - a Buddhist adept
who attained enlightenment - meditating or reading a sutra. Although they
are considered holy in India, arhats only became figures of devotion when
Buddhism spread to Tibet. Amongst these figures, a group of sixteen
has been singled out as the most revered, and as Tibetan Buddhism
was adopted by the Qing Imperial court to be the primary religion, these
sixteen figures were frequently depicted in different media. The main side
of the present plaque depicts the first of this group, Angaja. He is shown
holding a sutra in one hand seated above a rock, a composition taken from
a 10th century painting by Monk Guanxiu, which the Emperor Qianlong
viewed in the Shengyin Temple in Hangzhou during his Southern Tours
in 1757. The experience of viewing these paintings greatly inspired him
and he composed a series of poems accompanying each of the arhats the
next year, one of which is inscribed on this plaque. The Emperor Qianlong
also commissioned the court painter Ding Guanpeng to paint a new set of
luohan paintings in the style of Guanxiu, which are now preserved in the
National Palace Museum, Taipei. The depiction of the Sixteen Luohan in
Guanxiu’s style was also frequently seen on Imperial works of art, such as
a massive screen in the Palace Museum.
For other imperially inscribed gilt-decorated spinach-green jade plaques,
compare a set of four inscribed with ‘Ode to the Red Cliff’ sold at
Christie’s New York, 19 September 2014, lot 1245, and another set of eight
plaques inscribed with Shiquan laoren zhibao shuo(Disquisition on the Seal
of an Old Man of Perfect Completion) sold at Christie’s New York, 14-15
September 2017, lot 1025.