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Lot Essay
The inscriptions may be translated as:
Standing by the edge of the cliff with the wind shaking one's clothes;
One must be stronger than the heavy snow and roaring wind.
The one who composed this balanced picture of thatched dwellings;
Is he Sun Kang or Changkang [Gu Kaizhi of the Eastern Jin dynasty]?
In the spring the waves drive the raft afloat;
as a myriad of fishing boats sail from the village.
One should have in mind the wall painting of Cangzhou,
The brush strokes are fashioned in the style of Gu Hutou[Gu Kaizhi].
The inscriptions belong to the four-part poems Ti Fang Cong hua Gu Kaizhi shiyi, 'Inscriptions on the poetic landscapes after Gu Kaizhi by Fang Cong', recorded in Yuzhi Shiji, 'Compilation of Imperial Poems', vol. 3, juan 72, dated 1768.
The size of the screen would have made it ideal for the scholar's table. It is perhaps due to their use on the scholar's table that screens of this type often depict scenes of immortals, scholars, or the refined pleasures of the literati class. Compare the scholarly subject matter depicted in two imperially inscribed white jade table screens dated to the Qing dynasty, illustrated in The Refined Taste of the Emperor: Special Exhibition of Archaic and Pictorial Jades of the Ch'ing Court, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1997, pp. 198-199, no. 68, and pp. 200-201, no. 69. It is important to note that the carvers of both illustrated screens, and the current lot, have incorporated in the design an area left blank for the addition of the inscription.
Standing by the edge of the cliff with the wind shaking one's clothes;
One must be stronger than the heavy snow and roaring wind.
The one who composed this balanced picture of thatched dwellings;
Is he Sun Kang or Changkang [Gu Kaizhi of the Eastern Jin dynasty]?
In the spring the waves drive the raft afloat;
as a myriad of fishing boats sail from the village.
One should have in mind the wall painting of Cangzhou,
The brush strokes are fashioned in the style of Gu Hutou[Gu Kaizhi].
The inscriptions belong to the four-part poems Ti Fang Cong hua Gu Kaizhi shiyi, 'Inscriptions on the poetic landscapes after Gu Kaizhi by Fang Cong', recorded in Yuzhi Shiji, 'Compilation of Imperial Poems', vol. 3, juan 72, dated 1768.
The size of the screen would have made it ideal for the scholar's table. It is perhaps due to their use on the scholar's table that screens of this type often depict scenes of immortals, scholars, or the refined pleasures of the literati class. Compare the scholarly subject matter depicted in two imperially inscribed white jade table screens dated to the Qing dynasty, illustrated in The Refined Taste of the Emperor: Special Exhibition of Archaic and Pictorial Jades of the Ch'ing Court, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1997, pp. 198-199, no. 68, and pp. 200-201, no. 69. It is important to note that the carvers of both illustrated screens, and the current lot, have incorporated in the design an area left blank for the addition of the inscription.