Qīndìng Xīqīng yànpǔ 欽定西清硯譜
Imperially Authorized Catalogue of Ink-Stones from the Western Clarity (Forbidden City) Collection by 于敏中 (Yú Mǐnzhōng, 奉敕撰) and 梁國治 (Liáng Guózhì, 奉敕撰), with the Qiánlóng emperor’s prefaces and inscribed encomia
About the work
The most magnificent imperial ink-stone catalogue ever produced. Compiled by imperial command in Qiánlóng 43 (1778) and submitted in Qiánlóng 46 month 12 (early 1782) for inclusion in the Sìkù quánshū. Twenty-four juàn, surveying the Qing imperial collection of more than two hundred ink-stones held at the Forbidden City (including the Yǎngxīn diàn, the Qiánqīng gōng east-and-west warming halls, Rèhé, and Níngshòu gōng) and at the Bìshǔ shānzhuāng summer palace. Each ink-stone is illustrated (the túshuō 圖說 format includes obverse, reverse, and where significant, sides) and described with: dimensions, stone-substance, form, ownership-and-provenance, inscribed-text, Qing emperor’s inscriptions (overwhelmingly Qiánlóng’s), and any seal-marks. Many ink-stones receive a poem or míng (encomium) by the Qiánlóng emperor himself.
The work is arranged by chronological-and-typological criteria: juàn 1–6 collect the ceramic-type ink-stones (táo zhī shǔ 陶之屬), from the Hàn-period tile-stones (Wèiyáng palace and Tóngquè platforms — relics of the famous palace-roof-tiles) through the Sòng chéngní 澄泥 (decanted-clay) ink-stones; juàn 7–21 collect the stone-type ink-stones (shí zhī shǔ 石之屬), beginning with the Jìn-period Wáng Yīn 王廞 Bìshuǐ 璧水 warming-stone and ending with the Qīng Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 well-field ink-stone. The last three juàn (22–24) are appendices on the Sōnghuā 松花 (Manchu-origin) ink-stones, miscellaneous types, and on Qiánlóng-period imperial replicas of antique ink-stones.
Tiyao
We submit that the Qīndìng Xīqīng yànpǔ is in twenty-four juàn. In Qiánlóng 43 (1778) the various inner-court officials were imperially commanded to compile-and-define it. Each ink-stone is illustrated — obverse, reverse, and where relevant the side — and where there are imperial inscriptions (yùtí 御題), imperial encomia (yùmíng 御銘), imperial seals (yùxǐ 御璽), and previous-persons’ inscribed text, encomia, postface, or seal-marks, all are copied-and-traced according to format and appended to the catalogue. The dimensions, stone-substance, form, and the surname-and-place-of-origin of the collector are all investigated. The completed-text encomia-postfaces of various authorities are appended after the yùtí. Below this even the jūngōng’s (officials’) by-imperial-command compositions are similarly recorded. The first part is the ceramic class, from the Hàn-tile down to the Míng-manufactured, in all six juàn. The second is the stone class, from the Jìn-period Wáng Yīn Bìshuǐ ink-stone down to our Imperial-dynasty’s Zhū Yízūn well-field ink-stone — in all ten juàn. There are two hundred ink-stones, with four hundred sixty-four illustrations. The last three juàn, the appendix, list forty-one ink-stones with one hundred eight illustrations: the present Sōnghuā, zǐjīn, tuójī, hóngsī varieties, and various replica-chéngní are arranged here. The poetry-and-encomia of various forms, applying-the-name and observing-the-feature, are like the Creative-Engineer’s portrayal of things, with especially earnest attention to xiá shí xī fú (using right-times to bestow good-fortune) and to admonishing-thought-by-things. We have respectfully read the Imperially-Composed Preface, which says: “regretting submersion-and-rejection; comprehending the use of men; being cautious in likings-and-aversions; warning against the dabbling-in-things — in none of these has he-not paid threefold attention.” How great is the sage’s word! Far from merely favoring the literary materials, it announces the brushwork itself. — Submitted Qiánlóng 46 month 12 (early 1782). Chief compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The work was compiled on the imperial command of the Qiánlóng emperor, who personally selected the two hundred ink-stones to be catalogued from the much larger Qing imperial collection, and personally composed inscriptions and encomia on forty pieces in the space of six days during the work’s preparation. The imperial preface, dated Qiánlóng 43 (1778) mèngchūn xiàhuàn (early spring), reads as both a self-justification — Qiánlóng pre-emptively addresses the charge that the ink-stone collection is itself a vice of wánwù (idle dabbling-in-things), and presents the catalogue as a moral-instructional exercise — and as a major art-historical document.
The compilation was directed by Yú Mǐnzhōng 于敏中 (1714–1779) and Liáng Guózhì 梁國治, with editorial-and-supervisory roles for Wáng Jié 王杰, Dǒng Gāo 董誥, Qián Rǔchéng 錢汝誠, Cáo Wéntián 曹文埴, Jīn Shìsōng 金士松, Chén Xiàoyǒng 陳孝泳, and (for the illustrations) Mén Yìngzhào 門應兆. The work is therefore one of the great late-Qiánlóng collaborative compilations, executed by the cream of the Hàn-Chinese bureaucratic-academic elite.
The work is the principal document for the imperial ink-stone collection itself — many of the ink-stones recorded are now preserved in the National Palace Museum (Beijing or Taipei) or have been dispersed through the 1900–1911 looting and the 1949 Nationalist evacuation. The illustrations, prepared by the imperial painter Mén Yìngzhào 門應兆 (active 1770s–1780s), are the standard pre-photographic record of these objects.
Several of the ink-stones recorded have major art-historical importance: the so-called “Jìn Wáng Yīn Bìshuǐ warming-stone” (likely a Sòng forgery rather than a genuine Jìn antique) is one of the most famous ink-stones ever recorded; the Sū Shì 蘇軾 ink-stones (six in number, mostly Sòng-period attributions, some genuine) are central to literary-and-art history; the Mǐ Fú 米芾, Sū Shì, Huáng Tíngjiān, and Wén Zhēngmíng-attributed pieces define the wénfáng aesthetic.
The Sìkù recension is in the WYG; the present compilation is the standard version, and it survives as the principal Qing record of imperial collecting in this category.
Translations and research
- Sturman, Peter Charles. 1997. Mi Fu: Style and the Art of Calligraphy in Northern Song China. New Haven: Yale UP (background on the Sòng ink-stone tradition).
- Wáng Yùxiá 王玉霞. 2008. Zhōng-guó míng yàn jiàn-shǎng 中國名硯鑒賞. Tài-yuán: Shānxī rénmín chū-bǎn-shè.
- National Palace Museum, Taipei. 2002. Lǎn-jiè cáng-pīn: gǔ-yàn xuǎn-cuì 攬勝藏品: 古硯選萃 (exhibition catalogue).
- Lǐ Yìméi 李毅梅 et al. 2014. Xī-qīng yàn-pǔ jiào-zhù 西清硯譜校注. Tài-yuán: Shānxī rénmín chū-bǎn-shè (modern critical edition).
Other points of interest
The work occupies a unique position as the imperial counterpart to Mǐ Fú’s Yànshǐ — Mǐ Fú being the iconic private connoisseur, Qiánlóng the iconic imperial connoisseur. The Qiánlóng-period imperial-replica program (recorded in the appendix juàn 22–24) — in which contemporary Beijing craftsmen produced new ink-stones in the antique manner of Hàn-tile, SòngBìshuǐ, etc. — is a notable case-study in eighteenth-century imperial antiquarianism and reproduction-as-connoisseurship.