Bonhams 1793 : A white jade 'quails and landscape' incense burner and cover Qianlong

24 Nov 2012 14:00 CST Hong Kong
Timeless and Translucent: The Harold E. Stack Collection of Chinese Jades
Back to auction 20826

A white jade 'quails and landscape' incense burner and cover

Qianlong
Of archaistic form, the compressed globular body supported on four short rounded feet, the gently curved vertical sides divided into lobes, the main vessel finely worked on the exterior with a continuous scene featuring five quails, two on one side, three on the other, perched on rockwork amongst water beads, all against a distant mountain landscape, the sides flanked with a pair of elaborate handles, each decorated with a xi character surrounded by auspicious motifs of ruyi-head, cloud scrolls and narcissus, issuing forth loose ring handles, surmounted by a domed cover worked with two additional quails and water beads amongst a lakeside, the floral knop fashioned by pointed edges and ruyi-heads at the axis, issuing from a hollowed enclosure in the form of an octagonal star, the stone of an even white colour with an attractive russet splash on one side, the natural flaws of the stone skilfully incorporated into the design to convey the natural contours of the mountains.
19.5cm wide. (2).

Sold for HK$ 6,620,000 inc. premium

Footnotes

Provenance 來源:
Josiah Willard Hayden collection, Boston, according to invoice
The Jade Collector, Los Angeles, 27 April 1993

Josiah Willard Hayden (1874-1955) was from a distinguished American military family, rich in history. His ancestors included Samuel Hayden, a colonel in the Revolutionary Army, and Simon Willard, who founded the town of Concord, Massachusetts. He grew up in Boston as part of a wealthy merchant family, younger brother to the famous Wall Street financier and philanthropist Charles Hayden. Charles amassed a great fortune during his lifetime as the founding member and a major partner in Hayden, Stone & Company. When he passed away in 1937, he left his estate, including the Charles Hayden foundation in the care of Josiah.

The quality of the stone and the precision of the workmanship are outstanding, strongly suggestive of an Imperial commission. As Carol Michaelson explains in the introduction to the catalogue, the character for quail, anchun sounds close to the word for peace, anquan, and several quails together are an auspicious rebus wishing someone much peace and harmony. The use of such fine white stone to construct a vessel of archaistic form, combined with the sheer quality of the workmanship, reveals the Qianlong emperor's reverence for the past.

清乾隆白玉浮雕獸首銜環「鴛鴦禾穗」蓋爐

玉質潔白，溫潤瑩光，有輕微的黃斑。蓋頂飾蓮瓣紋式鈕，旁飾如意頭，蓋面及腹部作凹凸的瓜棱狀，皆減地淺浮雕通境一河兩岸，上飾鵪鶉和禾穗紋，鵪鶉成雙，或對望或依傍，禾穗長長的葉子輕擺，優雅動人。肩兩側飾對稱禾穗紋耳，中間有一「喜」字，銜環，雕工精湛，富層次感，底有四圓頂足，感覺工整典雅。

這題材取「雙鵪」和「禾穗」之諧音，喻意「歲歲平安」，祝願天下泰平之意，此題材一般常見於宮廷作品之中，如清宮舊藏中便有一件白玉雙鵪銜穗圓雕，見張廣文編，《故宮博物院藏文物珍品大系：玉器（下）》，上海，2008年，頁193，圖版154。

此蓋爐本為約西亞·威拉德·海登(Josiah Willard Hayden)(1874-1955)舊藏，他的曾祖父之父親塞繆爾·海登(Samuel Hayden)是一名革命軍上校和列剋星敦民兵，其曾祖父西蒙·威拉德(Simon Willard)開發了美國馬薩諸塞州康科德鎮。他從小生長在波士頓富裕的商人家庭裡，弟弟是著名的華爾街金融家和慈善家查爾斯·海登(Charles Hayden)。查爾斯用了一生的時間及財富成立了波士頓和紐約投資銀行公司Hayden, Stone & Company，成為創始成員及主要合作夥伴。查爾斯於1937年去世後，把遺產留給約西亞·威拉德·海登，包括美國最重要及富有的基金會之一的 Charles Hayden Foundation之慈善活動。