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Lot Essay
The poetic couplet on the present box, rendered in kaishu (regular script), may be translated as:
Jade-boned and pure as ice, untouched by dust;
A cool fragrance quietly rises in the moonlit dusk.
The couplet is followed by the name Jin Nong. Jin Nong (1687–1763), a leading figure among the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, was a poet, antiquarian, connoisseur, calligrapher, seal carver and painter. His close study of ancient inscriptions informed his highly individual manner of clerical script, later known as qishu, or “lacquer script,” distinguished by its blunt, angular strokes and archaic resonance. Although he did not take up painting seriously until around the age of fifty, Jin became particularly renowned for his depictions of prunus blossom, whose vigorous branches, profusion of blooms and artful simplicity possess a character entirely his own. The conjunction on the present seal box of plum blossom, poetic verse and the name Jin Nong thus evokes several of the artistic pursuits for which he was most celebrated.
The present box is particularly remarkable for its continuous, wraparound composition, in which flowering prunus branches extend from the top of the cover across its edges and onto the sides. This arrangement recalls the pictorial technique known as guoqiangzhi (過牆枝), or “a branch passing over the wall,” which was especially admired in imperial porcelains of the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods. By allowing the branches to cross the structural boundaries of the box, the design transforms the cover and sides into a unified canvas, lending the composition an unusual sense of natural growth and movement. For an 18th-century inlaid zitan rectangular box similarly decorated on the cover with flowering prunus and poetic inscriptions, but without the present wraparound scheme, see Christie’s London, 8 November 2011, lot 235.
Jade-boned and pure as ice, untouched by dust;
A cool fragrance quietly rises in the moonlit dusk.
The couplet is followed by the name Jin Nong. Jin Nong (1687–1763), a leading figure among the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, was a poet, antiquarian, connoisseur, calligrapher, seal carver and painter. His close study of ancient inscriptions informed his highly individual manner of clerical script, later known as qishu, or “lacquer script,” distinguished by its blunt, angular strokes and archaic resonance. Although he did not take up painting seriously until around the age of fifty, Jin became particularly renowned for his depictions of prunus blossom, whose vigorous branches, profusion of blooms and artful simplicity possess a character entirely his own. The conjunction on the present seal box of plum blossom, poetic verse and the name Jin Nong thus evokes several of the artistic pursuits for which he was most celebrated.
The present box is particularly remarkable for its continuous, wraparound composition, in which flowering prunus branches extend from the top of the cover across its edges and onto the sides. This arrangement recalls the pictorial technique known as guoqiangzhi (過牆枝), or “a branch passing over the wall,” which was especially admired in imperial porcelains of the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods. By allowing the branches to cross the structural boundaries of the box, the design transforms the cover and sides into a unified canvas, lending the composition an unusual sense of natural growth and movement. For an 18th-century inlaid zitan rectangular box similarly decorated on the cover with flowering prunus and poetic inscriptions, but without the present wraparound scheme, see Christie’s London, 8 November 2011, lot 235.