KANGXI PERIOD (1662-1722)

Details

A TIANHUANG SEAL
KANGXI PERIOD (1662-1722)
The oval seal is surmounted by a mythical beast playing with its young. The seal face is carved in relief with a two-character inscription in a horizontal line reading yuci, ‘imperially bestowed’, above a four-character inscription Xiangshang Luoshe, flanked by a pair of chilong.
1 9⁄16 in. (4 cm.) high, 57g, box

Exhibited

Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art, Kumamoto, Daijuikkai Eisei Bunko ten, Min Shin no Bijutsu to Kougei, 12 September – 18 October 1981, Catalogue no. 96-2
Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art, Kumamoto, Kōga na bunjin no sekai : Min Shin no kaiga to shoseki bunbōgu I (The Exhibition of Hosokawa Morisada Collection), 9 October-8 November 1992, Catalogue no. 70

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

The inscription on the present seal comprises two parts: a two-character inscription on the top carved in a horizontal line above an inscription in vertical line below, flanked by a pair of chilong, which is consistent with the standard format of seal inscriptions with imperial origin, such as the seal impression on one of the seals on the pair of Prince Kung tianhuang seals sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1 June 2016, lot 3205.

Xiangshang Luoshe is a phrase used to praise one’s literary talent. According to the Imperial Diary of the Emperor Kangxi, on his Third Southern Expedition, the Emperor wrote a calligraphy bearing this phrase for the scholar-official Li Zongkong (1620-1689).

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