Page 180 - Important Chinese Art Hong Kong Sotheby's April 2017

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PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN 清乾隆 青金石雕達摩面壁山子
《乾隆壬辰夏御贊》款
AN IMPERIALLY INSCRIBED LAPIS LAZULI
‘BODHIDHARMA’ BOULDER 題識：
QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG PERIOD 厜 趺坐，面壁依然。
少林之石，詎比和闐。
the substantial boulder of mountain form, worked in high relief 是語然乎，曰然即否。
to one face with a monk in a grotto, seated on a rocky ledge in 面者已非，壁復何有。
front of a pile of books and staring at the walls in meditation, 同斯一花，異斯五葉。
the grotto framed by cragged rockwork and wild shrubs, finely 是即拈手，是即笑頰。
incised and gilt on the rock face with an imperial poem bearing 崑崙葱嶺，地脈相連。
the cyclical date of Qianlong renchen (in accordance with 泯歸去來，示現隨緣。
1772), the stone of a bright purple-blue colour suffused with 乾隆壬辰夏御贊。
gold flecks and milky-white inclusions, the gilt-bronze stand 〈玉鏤達摩贊〉，《清高宗御製文集二集》，卷42，頁10
cast in the form of a rock base with a lush of wild plants
boulder 18.2 cm, 7⅛ in. 來源：
著名美國赫斯特報業攝影記者 Edmond D.
PROVENANCE Coblentz（1882-1959年）購自中國

Acquired in China by Edmond D. Coblentz (1882-1959), a
leading American photo journalist for Hearst newspapers.

HK$ 600,000-800,000
US$ 77,500-104,000

It is rare to find a lapis lazuli boulder of this high quality, Qing Gaozong yuzhi shiwen quan ji [Anthology of imperial Qianlong
inscribed with a Qianlong Imperial poem and complete with poems and prose], Yuzhi shi si ji [Imperial poems, vol. 4], juan 42, p. 10
its original gilt-bronze stand. For an example from the Avery
Brundage Collection in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, 《清高宗御製詩文全集．御製詩四集》，卷42，頁10
see René-Yvon Lefebvre d’Argencé, Chinese Jades in The Avery
Brundage Collection, San Francisco, 1977, p. 142, pl. LXIV.
See also a lapis lazuli boulder carved with a luohan in a grotto,
gifted by Heber Bishop in 1902 to the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, and on permanent display, accession no. 02.18.917.
Compare also an example sold at Woolley & Wallis, Salisbury,
19th May 2010, lot 342.

For a closely related example in jade, depicting Bodhidharma in
a mountain grotto, from the Qing court collection, preserved in
the National Palace Museum, Taipei, see The Refined Taste of
the Emperor: Special Exhibition of Archaic and Pictorial Jades
of the Ch’ing Court, Taipei, 1997, pp. 140-141, no. 39.

Traditionally symbolic of purity and rarity, lapis lazuli appears
to have been named qingyin shi (blue gold stone) during the
Qing dynasty. The aura of mystery that surrounded this stone
may have been due to the virtually inaccessible location of its
principle mines in the remote Badakhshan region of northeast
Afghanistan behind the Hindu Kush. According to Ming Wilson
in ‘The Colour of Stones’, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic
Society, vol. 62, 1997-98, p. 34, there are no known records
identifying this stone before the Qing period although beads
attributed to the Western Han period have been excavated.
Its natural smoothness allowed it to be polished to a high
degree which highlighted the brilliance of its blue colour and
contrasting natural inclusions. Carvings fashioned from lapis
lazuli are rare and were reserved for the imperial court.

178 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比