Footnotes

• Treasury 2, no. 350
  
  玉髓秋夜泛舟鼻煙壺
  擬御製品，傳宮廷作坊，北京，1740～1820
  
  A chalcedony 'Boating on an Autumn Night' snuff bottle
  
  Chalcedony and gold pigment; well hollowed, with a concave lip and recessed, very slightly convex foot surrounded by a protruding flat footrim; inscribed in regular script with the text, divided onto the two main sides, of Liu Fangping's 'Boating on an Autumn Night,' the characters filled with gold pigment
  Probably Imperial, attributable to the palace workshops, Beijing 1740–1820
  Height: 5.68 cm
  Mouth/lip: 0.62/1.55 cm
  Stopper: tourmaline; jadeite finial; turquoise collar
  
  Condition:
  Workshop condition
  
  Provenance:
  Hugh M. Moss Ltd. (1995)
  
  Published:
  Treasury 2, no. 350
  
  Yellow chalcedony would have had particular appeal at court on the grounds of being a naturally yellowish colour, which was reserved for Imperial use. It is not, of course, the brilliant yellow of the typical Imperial colour found on court robes and glass snuff bottles, but then neither is any of the so-called 'yellow' jade that was obviously so highly valued. It was probably sufficient for a natural material to do no more than appear yellowish to qualify for Imperial symbolism, which brings us neatly to one of our main reasons for an attribution to the palace workshops.
  
  The inscription on this bottle presents a fascinating mystery. For one thing, the same poem, by the eighth-century poet Liu Fangping, is inscribed on Treasury 7, no. 1581, a brilliant yellow amber bottle, in exactly the same style of calligraphy, which seems patterned after northern styles on steles of the fourth and fifth centuries. That two bottles in such dissimilar materials should have the same inscription in the same style suggests, as we said in our commentary in Treasury 2, that they were both done in the palace workshops. But even more remarkably, the poem as copied contains a glaring error: the second line does not rhyme, as it must in this genre of poetry. Our translation of the inscription is as follows, with the rhymes marked:
  
  One night on a woodsy pond I float my boat (zhou);
  A lone goose—cold and desolate (qiqi).
  The myriad shadows move with the moon;
  The thousand sounds belong to autumn (qiu).
  Another year has approached its end;
  Thoughts of home are unbearably sad (chou),
  Beyond the drifting clouds in the northwest,
  Where does the Yi River flow (liu)?
  
  (The Yi River flows into the Lo River at Loyang, which was the poet's native district, so he is expressing his homesickness.) The second line here looks unremarkable to anyone who has read a fair amount of Chinese poetry, although we have not found it in any other poem, let alone in any version of Liu Fangping's poem. But, as we said, it does not rhyme, and there is no way it could replace the second line of the received text of his poem: 'Insects echo, and the reeds sigh mournfully (sousou)'.
  
  The Qianlong emperor, during whose reign this bottle was probably commissioned, would have been familiar with ancient literature and would have been as likely as any other scholar to order a bottle with such a poem as this. The question is why, on not one but two bottles, such a puzzling error was tolerated. We have no answer at the present time. (Some astute readers may try to solve the problem by switching the first and second lines, since first-line rhyme is optional in this type of poetry, but there are metrical reasons why 'One night on a woodsy pond I float my boat' cannot adjoin 'The myriad shadows move with the moon' in a regulated verse, of which this poem is an example.)
  
  The inscription was obviously filled with gold pigment at some time, probably gold-leaf applied to the roughened cut surface of the stone where the calligraphic strokes were carved, but much of it has since worn away. We cannot be certain, of course, that the gold pigment was the original intention of the artist. It could have been added at any time after it was finished.
  
  玉髓秋夜泛舟鼻煙壺
  
  玉髓 、金彩; 掏膛徹底 , 凹唇，斂微凸底， 突出圈足，圈足底全面接觸地面; 兩面陰刻劉方，字填金
  擬為御製品，大概為宮廷作坊製品，北京， 1740–1820
  高﹕ 5.68 厘米
  口徑/唇徑： 0.62/1.55 厘米
  蓋﹕ 碧璽； 翡翠頂飾；綠松石座
  
  狀態敘述： 出坊狀態
  
  來源:
  Hugh M. Moss Ltd. (1995)
  
  文獻﹕
  Treasury 2, 編號 350
  
  黃色玉髓應該在宮廷特別受歡迎，雖然不是柘黃色，它還會象徵帝王。所謂的黃玉也不是柘黃色，但是黃玉也是皇帝青睬的石料。
  
  本壺的題句有一些方面使人莫名其妙。同一首詩也刻在Treasury 7, 編號 1581上，字體也有北魏風。那是黃色琥珀鼻煙壺，兩種迥不同的材料用一樣的字體刻同一首詩應該是標示兩件都是宮廷作坊作的。問題是﹕兩件御製鼻煙壺怎麼會把題句亂改？
  
  劉方平詩第一聯是﹕"林塘夜泛舟，蟲響荻颼颼"。這兩件煙壺寫的是﹕"林塘夜泛舟，孤雁泠妻妻" 。第二句不入韻，這就不成詩了。第一句不必押韻，可是要想把詩改成"蟲響荻颼颼，林塘夜泛舟"也不濟於事，因為塘字和第三句的影字就要失貼了。（雖然末句平平平仄平不是律句，此詩基本上是律調。）另外一個問題是泠字不清楚，也許是冷字。如果是泠字，那是三字腳都是平聲，不妥。原詩荻字入聲，比較好。
  
  那麼，怎麼會有人犯這個錯誤， 而出了錯怎麼會沒有人發現？

---

Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

---

Auction terms and conditions