Page 57 - Chinese Decorative Arts: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 55, no. 1 (Summer, 1997)

Ink cake with
Tang-Mirror Design
.....................................................................................
Qing dynasty, mid-8lth century later, with mark
or
of
Fang Yulu (act. ca. 1570-1619)
W. 43/8 in. (11.1 cm)
Rogers Fund, 1929
30.76.194

ang Yulu's ink cakes were so prized
among ink collectors that spurious marks
of his were often added to cakes made in later
periods, such as this example.
On its upper side, molded in relief, is the
design of a mirror with an eight-lobed foliated
rim and eight florets encircling a central one
around the mirror's knob. On the reverse is an
inscription arranged in a radial pattern around
Fig. 3. Tang-dynasty
the rim: Tang baoxianghuajian sijing qichun bronze mirror, from
linghuashi bei{uo huaduo (Tang precious image Xiqing Gujian (Cata-
of
flower mirror 4; diameter 7 chun; foliated type, logue Xiqing
florets on back). The vertical edges of the ink Antiquities), compiled
cake carry Fang's signature and a date: Wanli 1750 (juan 40, leaf
69 a,b). Reproduced
of
wuxunian (the wuxu year Wanli, correspond- from a facsimile
to
ing 1598), and Taixuan shihjian[ao (manu- reprint
of the 175I
of
factured under supervision Taixuan). edition.
Department
A bronze mirror with an identical design of Asian Art Library
is recorded and illustrated in Xiqing Gujian
(Catalogue Xiqing Antiquities,juan 40, leaf
of
a
69 a,b; fig. 3), compilation of the antiqui-
ties in the Qing palace undertaken in 1750.
This mirror was the inspiration for the
design on the ink cake. Also, the inscription
on the back of the cake is adapted from the
text accompanying the mirror in the cata-
logue. The cake was probably manufactured
in an imperial workshop.
The choice of a bronze mirror as the source
of the design for an ink cake was most likely
prompted by the formal resemblance of the
media-both are flat and relatively small and
created with section molds. The octagonal
outline of this cake is a clever adaptation that
echoes the foliation of the contained mirror
motif and at the same time maintains simple
edges for the cake. Ink makers of the eigh-
teenth century were capable producing
of
cakes with complicated outlines. The decision
to keep plain outline was probably an effort
a
to reproduce the less flamboyant seventeenth-
century style. WAS

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