Footnotes

Treasury 2, no. 267


巧色瑪瑙刻銘鼻煙壺
大概為御製品，賞賜類，或許宮廷作坊，北京，1730～1840


The Fisherman's Song

Agate; very well hollowed, with a flat lip and concave foot surrounded by a flat footrim; the stone with natural markings resembling a fisherman gazing out at a sunset scene from his skiff, which has a bird perched on its cabin, incised in clerical script 'Fisherman's song at dusk', followed by two seals which are read together as Daxin (Great heart)
Probably imperial, Official school, possibly palace workshops, Beijing, 1730–1840
Height: 5.4 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.74/1.68 cm
Stopper: glass; vinyl collar
Condition: an unusual irregular flaw in the material at the upper neck rim slightly polished back, but there may have been a small chip removed as well; the same original flaw is echoed a little further down, on the shoulders where the darker material is above the main image, where it is very obviously a flaw, not damage; neither is obtrusive. General relative condition: excellent

Provenance:
Christie's, London, 22 April 1991, lot 58

Published:
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 218
JICSBS, Autumn 1997, p. 7
Treasury 2, no. 267

Exhibited:
Hong Kong Museum of Art, March–June 1994
National Museum of Singapore, November 1994–February 1995

Commentary
The markings in this material could lead the imagination in many directions; the inscription, 'Fisherman's Song at Dusk,' however, defines the subject, transforming what might have been a sage on a rocky bluff into a fisherman in a skiff. In fact, this shift makes little difference symbolically, since the simple life of the fisherman, living to the daily rhythms of nature and provided for by her bounty, was an ideal to which scholars constantly aspired in their poems and their art.
The two seals carved after the title together form the title of an important essay by the Northern Song philosopher Zhang Zai (1020–1077). Anne D. Birdwhistell translated the title some years ago as 'Expanding the Mind'; this is her rendition of the essay's opening passage:
If one expands one's mind, then one can embody all the things of the world. If some things are not yet embodied, then one's mind still has things outside of it. The minds of ordinary people stop with the narrowness of hearing and seeing. The sage, however, completely develops his nature and so does not restrict his mind to seeing and hearing. He sees the world as not having a single thing that is not himself. Mencius said that if one completely develops one's mind, then one will know nature and Heaven, and thereby know that Heaven is so vast that there is nothing outside of it. A mind which has things outside of it cannot unite itself with the mind of Heaven. Knowledge from seeing and hearing is knowledge derived from contact with things. It is not what one's virtuous nature knows. What one's virtuous nature knows does not sprout from seeing and hearing. (Birdwhistell 1985, p. 38)
One looks at this bottle with one's virtuous nature and unites with the mind of Heaven.

Given the nature of the inscription on a second bottle that bears this 'signature', da xin, obviously by the same hand, we may guess that the patron was the emperor (see Treasury 2, no. 351).

The bottle is formally impeccable and the artist may have chosen this compressed spherical form with its simple cylindrical neck as a frame for the picture rather than as a statement in itself although, to some extent, the one emphasizes the other, however subtly. He may also have felt that the spherical form more appropriately matched and, therefore, emphasized the watery markings in the stone. There is one further possibility, however, which, while perhaps reading more into the artist's intentions than may have been there, is not only ideally suited symbolically to the stated subject but is a powerful addition to that symbolism. It is also worth remembering that in mature aesthetics, the aesthetics of process rather than product, the intentions of the artist are in every case limited to personal experience and perceptual horizons. If we accept this, then we must also accept that a more sophisticated audience can get more out of a work of art than the artist intentionally put into it. A work of art with specific, limited intent can, in short, provoke a response which is non-specific and unlimited, given the broader experience of the audience.

However it is viewed, this is one of the transcendent masterpieces of the genre and one only has to examine the detail of the head and shoulders of the figure to reveal what hidden depths of meaning can exist in a randomly marked piece of chalcedony if we are willing to seek them out.

A related bottle is illustrated in Friedman 1990, no. 41. Although no particular interpretation is given in the catalogue as to the entirely natural subject matter, the illustration, which evokes the image of a sage seated beneath a crescent moon by a lake, puts it in a class with this bottle in every way.


漁夫與明月，分割一清江

巧色瑪瑙；掏膛非常完整，平唇、凹底、平底圈足；瑪瑙本身表面的天然不同顏色使人想起小舟中的漁夫望懸崖，似乎有一隻鳥棲息舟篷上，背面刻隸書 "漁舟唱晚"四字與 "大"、"心"兩印

大概為御製品，賞賜類，或許宮廷作坊作，北京，1730～1840
高：5.4 厘米
口經/唇經：0.74/1.68 厘米
蓋：玻璃，乙烯基座
狀態敘述：頸部上邊的材料有罕見的瑕疵，已磨治，或許也削除了缺口，同瑕疵也出現在肩上，顯然是瑕疵，不是損傷，兩處瑕疵並不引人注目；一般相對的狀態：極善

來源：
佳士得，倫敦，1991年4 月22日，拍賣品號58
文獻：
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, 編號218
《國際中國鼻煙壺協會的學術期刊》Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, 1997年秋期，頁7
Treasury 2, 編號267
展覽﹕
香港藝術館，1994年3 月～6月
National Museum of Singapore, 1994年11月～1995年1月

說明：
觀賞本壺，思忖其中半顯半隱的圖像，再顅合讀為"大心"的二方印，觀者會領悟，設計師是暗指張載的《大心篇》第七﹕"大其心則能體天下之物，物有未體，則心為有外。世人之心，止於聞見之狹。聖人盡性，不以見聞梏其心，其視天下無一物非我，孟子謂盡心則知性知天以此。天大無外，故有外之心不足以合天心。見聞之知，乃物交而知，德性所知，不萌於見聞。"以德性觀此壺，則足以合天心呼？

考慮類似款試的Treasury 2, 編號351瑪瑙鼻煙壺，可以推測兩件都是御製煙壺。Friedman 1990 編號41也是讓人用想象力來揣摩揣摩的一件有關係的煙壺。