Page 304 - Bonhams Fine Chinese Art Nov 2013 London

One side of the ink cake is inscribed 延趣樓珍藏, which may be
translated as ‘Treasure of the Yanqu Pavilion’. The Yanqu Pavilion is
part of the Ningshou Palace in the Forbidden City.
The scene of the Lanting gathering depicted on the present lot
took place in the ninth year of the Yonghe reign, of the Eastern Jin
Dynasty (AD353). Wang Xizhi (c. 303-361), regarded as ‘the Saint
of Calligraphy’, together with 41 eminent scholars, gathered at
the Orchid Pavilion in Shaoxing, celebrating the Spring Purification
Festival, composing poems and engaging in a drinking contest with
wine cups flowing down a winding creek.
Wang wrote on this occasion a short preface famously known as the
Lanting Xu (Preface to the poems collected from the Orchid Pavilion).
Literati thereafter copied this canonical preface onto stone and
ink-rubbings, table screens, ink cakes, and many other scholar
objects, so that it might inspire the literati while in his studio, as seen [calligraphy],
at the back of the present lot.
The episode of the Lanting Gathering also gave rise to a popular
‘flowing cup’ game, which would take place in a pavilion specially
designed with a narrow winding channel cut in the floor. Spring
water flowed through the channel, and in one version of the game,
participants would try to float their cup down the channel without
it spilling; the loser would have to drink or compose a poem. In
another version, participants would be placed around the channel,
and whoever the cup stopped near would have to compose a
poem. The Qianlong Emperor was said to have been very fond of
this pasttime, and a Flowing Cup Pavilion 流杯亭 (Liubei Ting) was
built in the Pavilion of the Purification Ceremony 褉賞亭 (Xishang
Ting) his private quarters in the Forbidden City - see N.Berliner, The
Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City, Yale,
2010, p.96. However by the time of the erudite Qianlong Emperor,
the activity was enjoyed less as a party game than as a conscious
re-enactment of the scene described by Wang Xizhi, intended to
connect the participants with the literati traditions epitomised by the
famous calligrapher.
300 | Bonhams
The Qianlong Emperor himself embraced this literati approach in his
distinctive calligraphy, writing the following poem in 1792:
有石巉岩有竹攢
流觴亭裡石渠盤
他年遼待臨王帖
視昔由今正好觀
Which may be translated as
There are stones, cliffs and bamboo gatherings.
In the Pavilion of Floating Goblets, there is a stone curving [waterway]
slab.
In the future when I want to imitate the rubbing of Wang Xizhi
I will look at the Pavilion and imagine old times.
Composed towards the end of the Emperor’s life, the poem has a
delicate poignancy as it draws together the themes of gathering
friends, past masters, poetry, calligraphy and meandering streams
coming to an inevitable end. It is these intricate layers of meaning
which imbue the scene of the Lanting Gathering with such rich
significance for the Qianlong Emperor.
The present ink cake is remarkable in its high level of craftsmanship
and the superb moulding skills strongly suggests an origin at the
Imperial Court. The techniques of using gilt and colour pigment on
ink cake started in the Ming Dynasty and became more popular
during the Qianlong period, a period when it reached a technical and
aesthetic peak.