Page 154 - Sotheby's October 3 2017 Chinese Art

The Jiaqing ‘Hui Qi You Ji’ Seal
Guo Fuxiang
Sotheby’s Hong Kong has recently acquired a
seal of the Jiaqing Emperor (r. 1796-1820) that
will be sold at auction. This imperial seal has
a body of green jade and a finial of a dragon in
the clouds. Its base is 5.4 centimeters square
and it has a four-character inscription: Hui qi
you ji (‘Maintain one’s standards’). The carving
of both the finial and the inscription are fine,
skillful and well executed—an indication of the
carver’s superior artistry. There is a clear record in the seals made by the Jiaqing Emperor. One
of this seal in the Jiaqing Baosou (Collection
of Jiaqing Seals), presently held by the Beijing
Palace Museum. A comparison of the seal with
the description shows that this seal matches
the description in material of composition, size,
and style and layout of the seal characters. We
can thus affirm that this seal is the authentic
Jiaqing imperial seal described in the catalogue.
According to the Jiaqing Baosou, this seal was
one of a set of three, the other two seals being
Xianfu Gong (‘Xianfu Palace’) and Xu yi shou ren
(‘Encounter others with an open mind’). This
shows that these three seals were made with the
intention of placing them in the Xianfu Palace
(fig. 1).
The owner of this seal, the Jiaqing Emperor
named Yong Yan, was the fifth Qing emperor
after the Qing conquered China. His twenty-
five-year reign followed the prosperity of the
early Qing dynasty, yet served as an important
turning point toward China’s later decline.
Hence, circumstances in many areas of Chinese
life present a complicated picture. Among
the emperors of the Qing dynasty, the Jiaqing
Emperor had relatively many seals. And like the
age in which he lived, his seals were a mixture of
zenith and decline. As is well known, the Jiaqing
Emperor was 36 when he ascended the throne,
but unlike other emperors, after he ascended
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the throne, he could not exercise authority, since
the Qianlong Emperor Emeritus still retained
the final authority to make decisions. These
peculiar circumstances made it difficult for the
Jiaqing Emperor to break away from traditions
established during the reign of the Qianlong
emperor. All aspects of the Qianlong period
(1736-95) were carried forward into the Jiaqing
period. This inertia also found faithful expression understand any one of the seals of a set, it is
example is the seal sets made by this Emperor.
During his reign, the Qianlong Emperor made a
considerable number of seal sets consisting of
one seal for the front of a work and two seals for
the back of a work. Such seal sets can be divided
into two types. One type of seal set consists of a
front seal with the name of a palace building and
of two back seals with a memorable or suggestive
phrase giving the significance and origin of the
building name on the front seal. This type of set
can be called a palace-building seal set. In the
other type of seal set, the front seal and both
back seals feature fixed phrases that elaborate
on each other. This type of set can be called a
fixed-phrase seal set. Like the Qianlong Emperor
before him, the Jiaqing Emperor made more than
seventy sets of seals.1 And the set to which the
seal Hui qi you ji belongs is of the former type of and Yang of the xian hexagram from the I-Ching
set. In the making of seals, the Jiaqing Emperor
thus seems to be following in the tracks of the
Qianlong Emperor by imitating him. He was
unfortunately led to do this by his special social
and familial circumstances, mentioned above.
If, as stated above, the Jiaqing Emperor imitated
the Qianlong Emperor in the making of seals in a
way that reflects how the Jiaqing court continued
Qianlong traditions, then an explanation of
the meaning of this seal can tell us something
about the Jiaqing Emperor’s own thoughts and
perceptions as China transitioned from prosperity
to decline. As I already mentioned, the Hui qi you
ji seal is one part of a palace-building seal set of
three, and such sets of seals have inscriptions
that are intimately related. The inscriptions of
the two back seals express the seal owner’s
understanding and gives explanation to the
palace-building name. Hence I think that to
necessary to explain all three seals as a group.
Accordingly, to understand the seal Hui qi you ji,
we have to consider it together with the Xianfu
gong seal and the seal Xu yi shou ren in the
context of the historical circumstances of the
Jiaqing Emperor, the seal’s owner.
Though the seal set including the seal Hui qi you
ji was made for the Xianfu Palace, we also have
to consider how the seal’s owner, the Jiaqing
Emperor, was connected with the Xianfu Palace.
For background information, the Xianfu Palace
is in the western group of six palace buildings
in the Forbidden City. It was formerly named
the Shouan Palace. During the Jiajing period
(1522-66) of the Ming dynasty, it was renamed
the Xianfu Palace. The name comes from the
happiness (fu) resulting from the mixing of Yin
of Changes [Book of Changes]. The building itself
has a roof of yellow-glazed tiles and is taller than
the other buildings in the western group of six
palace buildings. It served not only as a residence
for empresses and consorts, but also on occasion
as a place for the emperor to sleep. When the
Qianlong Emperor Emeritus passed away in
the lunar first month of 1799, his successor to
the throne, the Jiaqing Emperor, first used the
Prince’s Study (Shang Shufang) as his humble
abode to show respect for his father. After twenty
days, he moved to the Xianfu Palace to continue