Page 97 - 2019 September 10th Sotheby's Important Chinese Art Jades, Met Museum Irving Collection NYC

The present boulder skillfully integrates the stone’s inherent
qualities into the composition. The mountain pass that Laozi
treads sweeps in a counter-arc to the peak of the mountain rising
above, creating a dynamic rhythm of curving lines that move the
eye across the scene. Additionally, the most prominent parts
of the stone have been used to carve the principal narrative
elements, literally foregrounding the protagonist’s journey against
a backdrop of natural contours which form the mountain setting.
The irregular outline of the boulder has also been preserved as a
visually interesting frame around the subject and referencing the
idiosyncratic rise and fall of a hilly landscape.
The carver’s decision to let the nature of the boulder inform the
subject matter and the compositional structure, is entirely in keeping
with the Qianlong Emperor’s belief that lapidary works of art should
be made in accordance with the characteristics of the medium. The
emperor famously praised a jade carving known as A Spring Morning
in the City along the River because the artisan ‘designed the piece
according to its nature and measurement, fully using its concave
and convex surfaces for curves and determining the top and bottom
according to the shape of the raw stone’ (Qing Gaozong yuzhi shiwen
quanji / Complete Works of Poetry of Emperor Gaozong of the Qing
Dynasty, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1976, vol. 6, juan 86, p.
20). The same approach to harmonizing the manmade imagery with
the raw stone can be seen on the present boulder.
The Qianlong Emperor described this aesthetic integration of natural
and artistic elements in jade carving as being poetic, not decorative,
which is the same standard he applied to Song dynasty paintings.
Indeed, the present image of Laozi riding a bu% alo is depicted on a
hanging scroll by the Song dynasty master Zhao Buzhi (1053-1110)
Laozi Riding an Ox, which was in the collection of the Qing Court
(now in the National Palace Museum, Taipei) and was inscribed with
a poem by the Qianlong Emperor in 1751 (Þ g. 1). The very same
imperial poem appears on the present boulder, incised on the cli%
above the traveling sage.
Fig. 1 ‘Laozi Riding an Ox’ by Zhao
Buzhi (1053-1110) © National Palace
Museum, Taipei.
⚦ᶨġġ㗩墄ᷳġ(1053-1110)ġ侩⫸榶䈃⚾
©⎘⊿⚳䩳㓭⭖⌂䈑昊

CHINESE ART FROM THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: THE FLORENCE AND HERBERT IRVING GIFT 95