Footnotes

清乾隆 白玉雕松鶴福祿壽圖硯屏

Provenance 來源:
An English private collection and thence by descent

英國私人舊藏，後由家族繼承

Circular screens such as the present lot are amongst the most prestigious form of jade carvings, requiring an exceptionally large and nearly flawless raw jade boulder for its production. The thick jade disc, up to 1cm at the edge, allowed the carving on both sides to be unusually deep, with the varying depths allowing the natural translucency of the stone to shine through. The crispness of the details contrasts with the smooth areas of the rocky cliffs, perhaps reflecting both the meticulous order and the expansive imagination of the ideal scholar's mind.

The Qianlong emperor is recorded as having commissioned jade screens to be carved based on paintings from the classical canon. A number of classical paintings from the emperor's own collection were ordered to be reproduced in jades such as the painting entitled Travellers in the Mountain, by Guan Tong of the Five Dynasties period. The Qianlong emperor's appreciation of jade 'landscape' screens is demonstrated in one of his poems, as discussed in an essay by Yang Boda, Arts of Asia, 'Jade: Emperor Ch'ien Lung's Collection in the Palace Museum, Peking', March-April 1992, which may be translated as follows:

'This piece of precious jade slab is from Khotan. It is unsuitable for making vessels such as the dragon hu and animal Lei. In order to fully utilise it, it is carved into a panel with the scene of "A Riverside City on a Spring Morning". Imagination is exerted to turn the natural undulation or ruggedness into an appropriate landscape... It takes ten days to carve with a tiny bit of water and five days to shape a piece of rock. The crafting is indeed very time-consuming'.

Such scenes of scholars and attendants dwarfed by vast mountain landscapes reflect the ideal of a peaceful retirement from public service at the end of a successful career: a dreamlike desire perhaps even more remote from the lifelong service of the emperor. The reverse of the present lot echoes the front in its depiction of remote pines and rocks, whilst the cranes and the stag and doe represent wishes for longevity, and the latter also marital bliss.

Compare a very similarly carved white jade circular screen, Qianlong, illustrated in Christie's 20 Years in Hong Kong, 2006, p.370, sold at Christie's Hong Kong on 1 December 2010, lot 3006. See also a white jade circular screen, Qianlong, from the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, similarly carved with two boys ringing a musical stone, illustrated by R.Kleiner, Chinese Jades from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, Hong Kong, 1996, pp.152-153, no.123 (top image, one of a pair) and later sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 27 November 2007, lot 1511.

See also a pale green jade circular screen, Qianlong mark and of the period, from the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Noble Virtuosity: Imperial Jades of the Qing Dynasty from the Palace Museum, Macau, 2012, pl.40, similarly carved with a stag and doe. For another white jade circular screen from the Musée National du Château de Fontainenbleau (inv.no. F 1478 C), see M.Crick, Chine Impériale: Splendeurs de la Dynasties Qing (1644-1911), Geneva, 2014, pp.152-153.

白玉泛青，質潤色勻，部份帶有皮色。屏為圓形，正面雕仙山亭台樓閣，福、祿、壽三壽星分別手持靈芝、如意及桃枝行走山間，身後小童跟隨，亭台前有兩小童，一童子手持靈芝，另一童子回首擊磬。屏反面雕松鶴雙鹿圖，寓意長壽吉祥。

雕刻此類圓形硯屏對玉雕工匠的技藝及選材均有極高的要求，工匠需要選用大塊玉質上乘的玉料進行雕琢，此類玉料極其珍貴。此件圓形硯屏玉質柔潤，用料講究，厚度達1厘米，使得玉匠雕刻得以深淺自如，將工藝發揮得淋漓盡致。

此類硯屏為清代宮廷文房陳設，具有類似繪畫的視覺效果，乾隆帝尤其寵愛此類具有「畫意」的玉器，清宮檔案中也曾有記載乾隆帝命宮廷造玉作坊工匠按照宮廷繪畫對玉器進行雕刻，見楊伯達，「北京故宮清宮舊藏乾隆玉器」，刊於《Arts of Asia》，1992年3-4月。

參見一例極為相似的清乾隆白玉雕圓形硯屏，著錄於《香港佳士得20年》，2006年，頁370，後於香港佳士得售出，2010年12月1日，編號3006。另見福格藝術博物館舊藏一例，與本拍品類似，著錄於R.Kleiner，《Chinese Jades from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman》，香港，1996年，編號123，後於香港佳士得售出，2007年11月27日，編號1511。

北京故宮博物院藏一件類似的乾隆圓形硯屏，見《君子比德：故宮珍藏清代玉器精品集》，澳門，2012年，圖版40。另見國立楓丹白露宮博物館藏一件白玉雕圓形硯屏（博物館編號F1478C），著錄於M.Crick，《Chine Impériale: Splendeurs de la Dynasties Qing (1644-1911)》，鮑氏基金，日內瓦，2014年，頁152-153。