Page 50 - Sothebys Fine Chinese Art London, November 2018

Fig. 2. Fig. 3.
Jade brush pot carved with the Six Recluses of Zhuxi, Jade brush pot carved with the Elegant Gathering at the West Garden
© Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing © Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing
圖二 圖三
玉竹溪六逸圖筆筒，北京故宮博物院 玉西園雅集圖筆筒，北京故宮博物院

During the middle and later parts of his reign, he vigorously promoted Under the Qianlong Emperor’s auspices, the jade brush pot became
the introduction of painting subjects into jade carving. He believed that an important medium for pictorial subjects. Its cylindrical form yields
while paper could last a thousand years, jade—the crystallized essence a suitably large, continuous, and regular pictorial surface, as could
of heaven and earth—was indestructible. Consequently, many themes be seen already on many bamboo and wood brush pots. During the
common in painting and calligraphy began to appear in jade carvings, Qianlong reign, this format was transferred to jade. Through the
which either were modelled on or inspired by pictorial prototypes or various techniques of high- and low-relief carving, openwork carving,
directly reproduced works of painting and calligraphy in the same way incision, and drilling, craftsmen realised an increasing quantity
as stone stelae. For example, the Qianlong court workshop faithfully of compositions with figures in landscapes on jade brush pots.
carved in jade calligraphies from the anthology Sanxitang fatie (‘Model Possessing not only the continuity of a scroll painting but also the
calligraphies from the Hall of Three Rarities’) and the famous Lantingji volumetric illusionism of sculpture, these brush pots fully embodied
xu (‘Preface to the poems composed at the Orchid Pavilion’). More the aesthetic and moral values of the literati.
common, however, were jade works depicting themes of painting. Most
Common figure-in-landscape subjects include the historical
famous among these was the Jade Mountain with Great Yu Controlling
narratives of the Four Sages of Shangshan, the Five Elders of
the Waters, which was initiated in the 46th year of the Qianlong
Juyang, the Six Recluses of Zhuxi, the Seven Sages of the Bamboo
reign (1781) and finished only in the 52nd year (1787), and required
the translation and transfer of the Song-dynasty painting Great Yu Grove, the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup, the Nine Elders of
Controlling the Waters to four large-scale sketches on paper, a wax model, Huichang, the Elegant Gathering at the West Garden, Immortals on
a wood model, and a drawing on the raw jade. The finished work was Mount Fantong, the Spring Evening Banquet in a Peach Blossom
sent to the Summer Palace and housed in the Leshoutang (Hall of Garden (after a poem by Li Bai), and so on (figs 2 and 3), as well
Joyful Longevity). The following year, the Emperor ordered his long as such auspicious or didactic subjects as clouds and waterfalls,
7
commemorative prose-poem to be inscribed on this jade mountain. and the Three Friends of Winter . Many of these brush pots
In it, he articulates an important motivation behind his transference faithfully illustrate historical stories or pictorial themes, but others,
of many paintings into jade carvings: “a painted picture may disappear especially those dating from the late Qianlong reign, interpret their
as time passes, but a solid [i.e. jade] work can hardly be destroyed even source materials innovatively. The present jade brush pot shows an
after a thousand years”. innovative interpretation of the theme of the Five Elders of Juyang.

48 SOTHEBY’S