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PROPERTY FROM A SCOTTISH PRIVATE COLLECTION This plaque is notable for its inscription which is incised in the
calligraphic style of the Qianlong Emperor, and cites a passage
AN INSCRIBED IMPERIAL CELADON JADE from Wang Xizhi’s (a.307- c.365) Lanting xu (Preface to the
PLAQUE Orchid Pavilion). It combines three of Qianlong’s passions:
QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG PERIOD calligraphy, history and highly-crafted works of art. His
particular enthusiasm for Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy, who was
of rectangular form, one face exquisitely incised and gilded also known as the ‘Sage of Calligraphy’, is well documented as
with scholars and attendants engaged in various pursuits the emperor made it his lifelong mission to assemble as many
amongst a riverside landscape with pavilions sheltered important copies of Wang’s works as possible. On the 44th
amongst pine, bamboo and wutong trees, the reverse engraved year of his reign (1779), Qianlong compiled in an eight-volume
and gilded with an inscription from the Lanting xu (Preface work, comprised of the best surviving copies of the Lanting xu
to the Orchid Pavilion) in Qianlong Emperor’s calligraphy, the together with copies of other great Tang calligraphers and his
stone of an even pale celadon tone own poems.
22 by 10.3 cm, 8⅝ by 4 in.
Inscribed jades of the Qianlong period are more commonly
£ 40,000-60,000 produced with clerical or regular (kaishu) script. Compare
plaques of this double-sided type, with a pictorial image
HK$ 386,000-580,000 US$ 49,700-74,500 on one side and inscriptions on the other, such as one with
a landscape, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1st June 2011,
lot 3622; another with Daoist immortals, from the De An
Tang collection, included in the exhibition A Romance with
Jade, Palace Museum, Beijing, 2004, cat. no. 23; and a
third, depicting a pine tree and dragon border, in the Palace
Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Compendium of Collections in
the Palace Museum. Jade, vol. 8, Qing dynasty, Beijing, 2011,
pl. 154, together with a pair of plaques gilded only on one side
with landscape scenes, pl. 152. See also a plaque inscribed
and gilded on the same side with a landscape and an imperial
poem, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the
Museum’s exhibition The Re ned Taste of the Emperor, Taipei,
1997, cat. no. 68.
Considered Wang’s most famous work, the Lanting xu was
written at Lanting [Orchid Pavilion] near Shanyin, Zhejiang
province, on the 9th year of the Yonghe reign (corresponding
to AD 353). To celebrate the Spring Purifying Ceremony,
Wang invited 41 guests to participate in a poetry competition
whereby if they failed to write a poem they had to drink wine.
Inscription on reverse
16 SOTHEBY’S
