JIAQING PERIOD (1796-1820)

Details

A SET OF SIXTEEN IMPERIAL INK CAKES
JIAQING PERIOD (1796-1820)
The ink cakes are of various shapes, each is moulded in shallow relief on one side with a scene depicting a hall, garden, or other location in one of the imperial complexes, and the other side with an inscription identifying the scene. The inscriptions and decoration are highlighted in gilt with occasional green details. Each ink cake bears a Jiaqing nianzhi four-character mark on the side. The set is accompanied by a four-tiered wooden box with a bail handle on each side, and the front of the cover is incised with an inscription Yuyuan tumo, ‘Imperial garden scenes ink cakes’.
The largest: 4 11/16 in. (12 cm.) long
Box: 9 in. (22.7 cm.) wide, 6 3/8 in. (16.2 cm.) deep, 5 1/4 in. (13.2 cm.) high

Provenance

Sold at Sotheby's London, 12 May 1989, lot 554
Mary and George Bloch, Hong Kong
Sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, Scholarly Works of Art from the Mary and George Bloch Collection, 23 October 2005, lot 99

Conditions of sale

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Marco Almeida (安偉達) SVP, Senior International Specialist, Head of Department & Head of Private Sales

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Lot Essay

The current set comes from a group of sixty-four, with each one depicting a different scene from the imperial complexes. The rubbings of the moulds for this set are illustrated in Ink Mould Engraving of Huizhou, Hefei, 1985, pp. 39-102. Compare to a complete set sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 28 November 2012, lot 2379.

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