Page 175 - The Parry Collection Bonhams London November 2 2021

Palace where the Qianlong Emperor lived as furtherance of his image as an accomplished Qianlong Emperor aimed to show himself as
a Prince, and these poems were published scholar. Indeed, the Qianlong Emperor was worthy of any educated Han Chinese literatus:
in the second year of his reign. It could be a prolific poet and composed thousands of learned in the classics and the arts of painting
said that the Qianlong Emperor was nostalgic poems that, taken together, construct an and calligraphy. He therefore surrounded
about his earlier time in this palace before he image of the Emperor as a wise, erudite yet himself with the accoutrements of the scholar,
became Emperor, and so wanted brushpots sensitive ruler. As a Manchu, he was still very such as brushpots, embellished with his own
carved with this particular poem. We enter much conscious of his perceived ‘foreignness’ poems in fine calligraphy.
the private realm of the Qianlong Emperor - by the Han Chinese elite. His sensitivity to
firstly, through the poem, in his small garden the issue resulted in both a sorcery scare in In this series of poems carved on the present
rather than on an ostentatious grand tour, 1768: a hunt for perceived sorcerers cutting brushpot, the description of beautiful scenery
and secondly, through the brushpot, with him off the Manchu prescribed queues, and and nature parallels the harmony and beauty
seated at his scholar’s desk. literary inquisitions that sought to censor and of a world under his dynasty’s rule. Brushpots
destroy any text that he considered insulting with these poems, such as the present lot,
Although brushpots with calligraphy can be to the Manchu. See P.A.Kuhn, The Chinese would instill in the writer the erudition of the
found from earlier reigns, such as the Kangxi Sorcery Scare of 1768, New Haven, 2009. Emperor, and similar poems were inscribed on
period, it was only during the Qianlong The Qianlong Emperor’s concerns however, other brushpots in different mediums. See for
period that a brushpot is decorated with the had a positive side too, propelling him to forge example, the same poem on an underglaze
Emperor’s own poem. This can be taken as an identity, given that he was not entirely Han red and white brushpot, Qianlong, illustrated
a sign of the Qianlong Emperor’s confidence Chinese, to became the custodian, protector in Sun Yingzhou de taoci shijie, Beijing, 2003,
in poetry and classical Chinese literature and and benefactor of that culture. As such, the p.262, no.161.

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