WANLI PERIOD (1573-1619)

Details

A MING BLACK-LACQUERED WOOD QIN
Wanli period (1573-1619)
Of tapering shaped outline, covered in black lacquer with exposed wood bridge and seven mother-of-pearl studs on the arched top, with two fluted globular peg feet, yanzu ('wild geese feet'), and seven similarly fluted tapering wood tuning pegs, zhen, on the flat underside which has two oblong sounding holes, the larger known as longchi ('dragon's pond') and the smaller fengzhao ('phoenix pool'), the underside carved with two large characters naming the qin, Yi Yun ('leaning on clouds'), and signed in smaller characters, 'calligraphy by Zi', and with an eighteen-character inscription and a small seal mark, the interior carved with further inscriptions, with seven yellow silk tasseled cords
48in. (122cm.) long

Provenance

E & J Frankel, New York.

Exhibited

Games People Play, E & J Frankel, New York, March 1999.

Lot Essay

The lengthy inscription may be translated, 'In the gengchen year [1880] of the Guangxu emperor, mid-autumn, seventh month, Bochun shi appreciated [this qin]' and that Guo Huan [?] was the conservator who restored it. The small seal mark, Yi Wu, may be the inscriber's name.
For a lengthy discussion of qin see G. Tsang and H. Moss, Arts from the Scholar's Studio, Hong Kong, 1986, no. 151, and for a qin of similar shape see pp. 34-5, no. 1.

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