Page 30 - 2020 December 1 Bonhams Hong Kong, Eternal Music in Chinese art

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ANONYMOUS A GILT-BRONZE ‘DRAGON’ TUNING KEY, QIN ZHEN YAO
Ladies and qin, Early Qing Dynasty Western Han Dynasty
Album of two leaves, ink and colour on silk, each leaf with two seals Expertly cast at the top with a coiled dragon in openwork on each side
reading Shen Zhou and Nantian, framed and glazed. of a slender shaft in the form of a dragon head terminating in a square
36cm (14in) high x 27.5cm (10 3/4in) wide (2). socket, with traces of gilt decoration and green encrustation.
16cm (6 1/4in) long (2).
HKD50,000 - 80,000
US$6,500 - 10,000 HKD30,000 - 50,000
US$3,900 - 6,500
清早期 佚名 仕女圖對開 水墨絹本 鏡框
西漢 銅鎏金琴軫鑰
Provenance:
Bluett & Sons Ltd., London (label) The precise function of tuning keys such as the present lot remained
something of a mystery until the excavation of the 5th century BC
來源：倫敦Bluett & Sons（標籤） tomb of the Marquis of Zeng in 1977-1978, when a horde of musical
instruments was excavated, including a ten-string zither with tuning
鈐印：沈周、南田 pegs requiring the use of a tuning key; see J.So, ‘Different Turns,
Different Strings: Court and Chamber Music in Ancient China’, in
The album with two leaves: one depicting a lady playing the qin of Orientations, May 2000, pp.26-34, where the author notes that the
jiaoye (plantain leaf) form, the other painting depicting two ladies with first factual indication of their use was the excavation of tuning keys
a younger lady by a stone table preparing stationery. Jiaoye guqin together with matching pegs from the 2nd century BC tomb of the
are rarely seen in Chinese paintings, although there were many works King of Nanyue, in Guangzhou, Guandong Province in 1983. The zhen
featuring guqin. Two seals are attributed to Shen Zhou (1427-1509), yao were used to tighten the pegs on which the strings of a qin are
however, the clothes the ladies wear relate more to the late Ming and wound; for a detailed discussion, see Xihan Nanyuewang mu (Tomb of
early Qing era. the King of Nanyue), Beijing, 1991, vol.1, p.45.

此畫用色艷麗，人物開臉有沈南田筆意，然而服裝及妝容有濃郁明末 A number of tuning keys surmounted by various zoomorphic forms are
清初風格。一頁描繪一仕女坐於山石之上撫琴，另有一女臨石靜聽， illustrated by B.Lawergren in ‘Strings’, in J.So, ed., Music in the Age of
山石上置香爐、花瓶各一。另一頁描繪仕女二人及一女童於石枱上準 Confucius, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington
備筆墨。 DC, 2000, pp.65-85. The subject of a coiled dragon on the present
tuning key is rare. However, compare with a closely related bronze tuning
彈琴圖常見，而描繪蕉葉琴的例子十分少見。一般彈琴圖中，古琴形 key excavated from the tomb of the King of Nanyue, illustrated by Liang
象一般為仲尼式，且多為高士撫琴。 Huitong, ‘Silu tongtong zaohua, Tonglun chuan qinsheng: man tan
Nanyue wenwang mu chutu de tong qinzhen’ (Brief Discussion on Bronze
Turning Pegs), in Wenwu Tiandi, Beijing, January 2019, p.40, fig.4.

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