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Lot Essay
The Eight Buddhist Emblems, and a brief suggestion of their meaning, are as follow:
The Wheel of Law (falun), the inexorable expansion of the Buddha's teaching; the Conch Shell (luo), majesty, felicitous journey, the voice of the Buddha; the Umbrella (san), spiritual authority, reverence, purity; the Canopy (gai), royal grace; the Lotus (hua), purity, truthfulness in adversity; the Vase (ping), Eternal harmony, the receptacle of lustral water, the nectar of immortality; the Paired Fish (shuangyu), conjugal happiness, fertility, protection, spiritual liberation; the Endless Knot (zhang), eternity.
This set of eight Emblems would have been placed on an altar as ornaments. Complete sets are extremely rare and only a few are known in the Lamaist temples in the precincts of the Forbidden City, Beijing, and in the Summer Palace in Chengde. Such a set from the Chengde Imperial Mountain Resort Museum was included in the exhibition, Imperial China: The Living Past, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1992, Catalogue no. 78. Another set can be seen on the altar of the Fanzonglou in the Forbidden City, Beijing, 1992, pl. 99-1, where metal altar ornaments, on which the porcelain ones are based, are pictured on another altar, pl. 108-1 and 3, while a gilt-silver set is seen on pl. 139. Two other complete sets were sold at auction, at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 29 October 2001, lot 607; and in these Rooms, 29 April 2002, lot 535.
It is interesting to find a reference on how the emblems were used. An official Court portrait of Emperor Kangxi in his later years, depicts the elderly monarch holding a string of beads, seated behind at a low table arranged with a complete set of the eight emblems; cf. Court Paintings of the Qing Dynasty of the Collection in the Palace Museum, Beijing, 1992, pl. 14.
These altar ornaments vary in their modelling and palette. Single and pairs of these ornaments are also known, such as the pair sold in our New York Rooms, 16 September 1999, lot 382; and a single Emblem, unpublished, in the Shanghai Museum.
The Wheel of Law (falun), the inexorable expansion of the Buddha's teaching; the Conch Shell (luo), majesty, felicitous journey, the voice of the Buddha; the Umbrella (san), spiritual authority, reverence, purity; the Canopy (gai), royal grace; the Lotus (hua), purity, truthfulness in adversity; the Vase (ping), Eternal harmony, the receptacle of lustral water, the nectar of immortality; the Paired Fish (shuangyu), conjugal happiness, fertility, protection, spiritual liberation; the Endless Knot (zhang), eternity.
This set of eight Emblems would have been placed on an altar as ornaments. Complete sets are extremely rare and only a few are known in the Lamaist temples in the precincts of the Forbidden City, Beijing, and in the Summer Palace in Chengde. Such a set from the Chengde Imperial Mountain Resort Museum was included in the exhibition, Imperial China: The Living Past, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1992, Catalogue no. 78. Another set can be seen on the altar of the Fanzonglou in the Forbidden City, Beijing, 1992, pl. 99-1, where metal altar ornaments, on which the porcelain ones are based, are pictured on another altar, pl. 108-1 and 3, while a gilt-silver set is seen on pl. 139. Two other complete sets were sold at auction, at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 29 October 2001, lot 607; and in these Rooms, 29 April 2002, lot 535.
It is interesting to find a reference on how the emblems were used. An official Court portrait of Emperor Kangxi in his later years, depicts the elderly monarch holding a string of beads, seated behind at a low table arranged with a complete set of the eight emblems; cf. Court Paintings of the Qing Dynasty of the Collection in the Palace Museum, Beijing, 1992, pl. 14.
These altar ornaments vary in their modelling and palette. Single and pairs of these ornaments are also known, such as the pair sold in our New York Rooms, 16 September 1999, lot 382; and a single Emblem, unpublished, in the Shanghai Museum.