Page 36 - Christie's, Important Chinese Works of Art December 2, 2015 HK

3109 Compare also to a very similarly decorated spinach-green jade
bianqing inscribed with the tone Wushe in the Qing Court Collection,
A RARE LARGE IMPERIAL GILT-DECORATED illustrated in Jadeware (III), The Complete Collection of Treasures
SPINACH-GREEN JADE MUSICAL CHIME, of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 1; and a spinach-green
BIANQING jade teqing dated to 1783 from the Paul von Hintze Collection, sold at
Christie’s Paris, 19 December 2012, lot 126.
DATED TO THE 29TH YEAR OF THE QIANLONG REIGN,
CORRESPONDING TO 1764 AND OF THE PERIOD

The angled stone is finely decorated in gilt on each side with
two ferocious five-clawed dragons contesting a flaming pearl
pierced with a perforation for suspension. The narrow sides are
decorated with scrolling clouds, one of which is inscribed with
Qianlong ershi jiu nian zhi, ‘Made in the twenty-ninth year of
the Qianlong reign’; another side is inscribed with the Chinese
musical tone bei Yi ze.
18 ‰ in. (47.9 cm.) long, box

HK$2,000,000-3,000,000 US$260,000-390,000

PROVENANCE

The Baron Antoine Allard Collection (1907-1981)

Chimestones are considered as one of the most ancient musical
instruments in China. The inverted V-shape probably became the
standard form under the Zhou dynasty. For a hardstone prototype from
Shang dynasty engraved with a tiger, excavated in 1950 from the great
tomb at Wuguan, Anyang, see S. Howard Hansford, Chinese Carved
Jades, London, 1968, pl.4.

The archaistic taste of the Qianlong Emperor and his desire to follow
Confucian traditions regarding ritual music encouraged him to order
various sets of jade chimestones to be used in Court ceremonies. Qing
court protocol referred to two different types of chimestone sets: sets of
sixteen stones (bianqing) and sets of twelve individual stones (teqing).
The present stone belongs to the first category. The total set of sixteen
chimestones provide twelve musical tones with the four repeated notes
in lower or higher octaves, one of which, bei Yize, is inscribed on the
present stone. The twelve Chinese musical tones are arranged in the
following sequence: Huangzhong (1st), Dalu (2nd), Taicu (3rd), Jiazhong
(4th), Guxi (5th), Zhonglu (6th), Ruibin (7th), Lingzhong (8th), Yize (9th),
Nanlü (10th), Wushe (11th), and Yingzhong (12th).

A complete set of sixteen chimestones also dated to Qianlong twenty-
ninth year in the Beijing Palace Museum was included in the Royal

Academy of Arts exhibition China:
The Three Emperors 1662-1795,
London, 2005, pl. 31. Another
complete set of bianqing was
kept in the Pavilion of the Flying
Dragon, in the Shenyang Imperial
Palace, illustrated in situ in The
Gathering of Select Gems from the
Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum
Collection, Shenyang, 1991, p. 16.
Other spinach-jade chimestones
with the same date include one
exhibited in China Institute in
America, Chinese Jade through the
Centuries, New York, 1968, no. 66;
one sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong,
8-9 November 1982, lot 362; and
one sold at Christie’s Hong Kong,
26 November 2014, lot 2941.

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