Page 184 - Sotheby's NYC September 21 2022 Important Chinese Art

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A PAIR OF SPECTACLES SET WITH CRYSTAL geometry, physics, and especially optics, visited these shops Surveying the existing spectacles in the Palace Museum, 清十八 / 十九世紀 水晶眼鏡
LENSES in Hangzhou early in his career and sought to bring this Beijing, Mao discusses the use of these corrective spectacles 印文：
QING DYNASTY, 18TH / 19TH CENTURY knowledge back to his birthplace. Through much trial and by the Qing emperors, citing that the Qing Court Collection
error, Sun was able to greatly advance and expand the use contained both spectacles gifted by Western missionaries 真正水晶
yellow brocade case, with labels reading zhenzheng shuijing of corrective lenses. Not only was he able to produce around to the emperors as well as ones made domestically, 三山老店
(real crystal), san shan lao dian (the old shop of san shan), 24 different lenses to cater to a wider range of eyesight including ones from well-known commercial workshops. 褚堯天製
Chu Yaotian zhi (Made by Chu Yaotian), ink label in French problems by switching the use of glass lenses to crystal ones, The Yongzheng, Qianlong and Xuantong Emperors all had a
reading à M. Brochart, hommage de respectueuse gratitude he also invented spectacles that could be worn on the nose, personal collection of spectacles. In particular, the Yongzheng 來源
12 mai 1902 (to Monsieur Brochart, as a tribute of respectful greatly increasing the daily convenience of these lenses. Emperor was recorded to be especially fond of them: Qing Brochart 先生獲贈於1902年5月12日
gratitude 12th May 1902) (3) Sun’s invention was immediately met with great success and records documented that the Emperor once had spectacles
Width when extended 6 in., 15.2 cm the use of eyeglasses quickly popularized and spread to the placed everywhere around him, including his bedroom and
rest of the empire. Suzhou became known as the center of at Yuanmingyuan, so that he could use them whenever he
PROVENANCE production for these crystal lenses. needed to. Compare a closely related pair, with huangtong
Gifted to Mr. Brochart, 12th May 1902. During the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, the workshop ruyi-shaped mounts, in the Palace Museum, Beijing,
Imported into China during the Yuan dynasty, corrective of Chu Sanshan appeared and was known as the best illustrated in ibid., p. 33.
lenses were solely reserved for the rich and powerful up amongst the many in the city (see Mao Xianming, ‘Gugong The yellow embroidered spectacle case may further indicate
until the Ming period due to the high cost and rarity of these zhenchang de yanjing [Spectacles in the collection of the an imperial association. See a related embroidered eyeglass
imported goods. A burden to use, these lenses were often Palace Museum]’, Zijincheng, 2002, pp 34-36). Believed to pouch, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei (accession no.
singular handheld instruments, more closely resembling be a student of Sun, Chu further advanced the technology 贈雜000047N000000000). Compare several embroidered
magnifiers than eyeglasses. During the later years of the developed by his teacher. The labels on the present lot, spectacle cases with a similar silk cord, one, attributed to
Ming dynasty, the knowledge to produce such lenses was indicate that these came from ‘the old shop of Sanshan’ and the 18th to 19th century, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
slowly acquired by the craftsmen of Hangzhou, and the were ‘made by Chu Yaotian’, which points to this well-known New York (accession no. 30.75.687), three, attributed to a
city became an emerging site for China’s earliest domestic workshop, with Chu Yaotian possibly a descendant of the later date, in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis
production of corrective lenses. Sun Yunqiu (1628-1662), a famous Chu Sanshan. (accession nos 45.15.3, 31.50.172a and 30.23.175), and
scholar and inventor from Suzhou who was well versed in illustrated in Robert D. Jacobsen, Imperial Silks: Ch’ing
Dynasty Textiles in The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, vol. II,
Minneapolis, 2000, pls 356, 359 and 360.
⊖ $ 50,000-70,000

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