Lot Essay
As on many Qianlong archaistic vessels, the poetic inscription reveals the Emperor's veneration of ancient forms and his view that standards had fallen and should be rectified:
The inscription employs quotations from the Confuican philospher Mencius and can be translated:
"This Guang appears to be made in the Han, but is it really?
Harmonious and abundant in appearance (like the superior man)
If not Shang, then certainly it must be Zhou.
Its quality is like that of mutton fat.
More preciuos and refined than the 'Dragon tail' rock of Anhui.
(Mencius says) 'Half the work and double the result'
From this can you understand the importance of scholarship?"
Other cups of this form have been published. The most similar was sold in our London Rooms, 5 June 1995, lot 352. Both are carved from similarly textured stones with the same archaistic motifs and have inscriptions inside the rim. Both cups can be compared to a dark-green inscribed Guang illustrated in by Yang Boda, in Jade, Arts of Asia, March-April, 1992, fig. 19 and to an example carved from dark-green stone and illustrated in Zhongguo Yuqi Quanji,, Qing, vol. 6, no. 25, which follows the sequence of archaistic scrolls.
A rhyton from the Captain Louis Tissier collection, acquired by him in China during the Boxer Rebellion and sold in our Hong Kong Rooms, 30 October 1994, lot 458, has archaistic scrolls carved in different sequence to the present lot but a similar undulating rim and greenish brown stone.
The inscription employs quotations from the Confuican philospher Mencius and can be translated:
"This Guang appears to be made in the Han, but is it really?
Harmonious and abundant in appearance (like the superior man)
If not Shang, then certainly it must be Zhou.
Its quality is like that of mutton fat.
More preciuos and refined than the 'Dragon tail' rock of Anhui.
(Mencius says) 'Half the work and double the result'
From this can you understand the importance of scholarship?"
Other cups of this form have been published. The most similar was sold in our London Rooms, 5 June 1995, lot 352. Both are carved from similarly textured stones with the same archaistic motifs and have inscriptions inside the rim. Both cups can be compared to a dark-green inscribed Guang illustrated in by Yang Boda, in Jade, Arts of Asia, March-April, 1992, fig. 19 and to an example carved from dark-green stone and illustrated in Zhongguo Yuqi Quanji,, Qing, vol. 6, no. 25, which follows the sequence of archaistic scrolls.
A rhyton from the Captain Louis Tissier collection, acquired by him in China during the Boxer Rebellion and sold in our Hong Kong Rooms, 30 October 1994, lot 458, has archaistic scrolls carved in different sequence to the present lot but a similar undulating rim and greenish brown stone.