Page 104 - Sotheby's October 3 2017 Chinese Art

3617

AN IMPERIALLY INSCRIBED WHITE This finely carved jade table screen portrays the
AND BLACK JADE TABLE SCREEN Song dynasty scholar Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073)
QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG who is known for his love of lotus. The design is
PERIOD complemented by Zhou’s famous short essay
Ai lian shuo (‘On the love of the lotus’), which
of rectangular form, the front deftly and deeply praises the purity and integrity of the lotus
worked in varying levels of relief, depicting an because it rises clean out of muddy water, just as
idyllic scene of the scholar Zhou Dunyi standing a scholar can rise above worldly affairs.
beside a crouching attendant by a fenced podium
emerging from cragged rockwork, admiring Zhou’s essay was popular since the Song dynasty
blooming lotuses on a flowing river before and the concept continued to be influential in the
mountains in a distance, the scene framed on succeeding periods, especially among the literati.
the right with tall pine trees on jagged rocks, The Qing emperors also showed their admiration
lightly inscribed to the reverse in Qianlong’s of Zhou. The Yongzheng Emperor copied the
calligraphy with Zhou’s poem Ai lian Shuo (‘On poetic essay and the calligraphy was later printed
the love of the lotus’) and two characters reading and included in Siyitang fatie [Modelbooks of the
yubi (‘In the Imperial hand’), followed by two Siyi Hall], compiled by the Qianlong Emperor in
square seals reading Jixia yiqing (‘When does the first year of his reign (corresponding to 1736).
one have the leisure to delight the heart?’) and
de jiaqu (‘obtaining refined enjoyment’), all For a similar jade table screen inscribed with an
bordered by a key-fret band, raised on a zitan imperial poem written by the Qianlong Emperor
wood stand carved with stylised taotie masks, and carved with a lotus pond, but without any
above a stepped rectangular plinth formed from figures, see an example sold in these rooms,
reticulated lotus and ruyi panels divided by 8th October 2014, lot 3656. A related jade table
baluster-form supports between horizontal lappet screen also inscribed with an imperial poem,
bands depicting the calligrapher Wang Xizhi (303-
jade 23 by 16.7 cm, 9 by 6½ in. 361) gazing at geese, is in the collection of the
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University,
PROVENANCE Cambridge, Mass., object no. 1942.185.173.A.

An English private collection.
Christie’s London, 10th/11th November 2005,
lot 390.

HK$ 2,000,000-3,000,000
US$ 256,000-384,000

清乾隆 御題墨白玉周子愛蓮插屏 連 紫檀座
《御筆》款
「幾暇怡情」、「得佳趣」印

來源：
英國私人收藏
倫敦佳士得2005年11月10/11日，編號390

題識：
水陸草木之花，可愛者甚蕃。晉陶淵明獨愛
菊，自李唐來，世人甚愛牡丹。予獨愛蓮之出
淤泥而不染，濯清漣而不妖；中通外直，不蔓
不枝；香遠益清，亭亭淨植，可遠觀而不可褻
玩焉。予謂：菊，花之隱逸者也；牡丹，花之
富貴者也；蓮，花之君子者也。噫！菊之愛，
陶後鮮有聞。蓮之愛，同予者何人？牡丹之
愛，宜乎眾矣！周子愛蓮說。

102 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比