硯山齋雜記

Yàn shān zhāi zá jì 硯山齋雜記

Miscellaneous Records from the Inkstone-Mountain Studio

attributed to 孫炯 (Sūn Jiǒng), grandson of 孫承澤 (Sūn Chéngzé).

(Note: the catalog meta erroneously attributes this work to 孫承澤 (Sūn Chéngzé, 1592–1676); the Sìkù editors demonstrate by internal evidence that the work cites Zhā Shènxíng 查慎行’s Jìngyè táng shī and Wáng Shìzhēn’s Jūyì lù — both post-dating Sūn Chéngzé — and must therefore be by a descendant. The probable author is Sūn Chéngzé’s grandson Sūn Jiǒng 孫炯, author of Yàn shān zhāi zhēn wàn jí lǎn 硯山齋珍玩集覽.)

About the work

A 4-juàn early-Qīng connoisseurship and xiǎoxué bǐjì. The studio name Yànshān zhāi (Inkstone-Mountain Studio) was Sūn Chéngzé’s. The Sìkù editors received the work without an attributed author; some suspected Sūn Chéngzé was the author, but the citations of Zhā Shènxíng’s Jìngyè táng shī and Wáng Shìzhēn’s Jūyì lù — both works completed after Sūn Chéngzé’s 1676 death — rule out Chéngzé’s authorship. The probable author is Sūn Chéngzé’s grandson Sūn Jiǒng 孫炯, who also wrote a Yàn shān zhāi zhēn wàn jí lǎn 硯山齋珍玩集覽. The work opens with a discussion of the liù shū (six principles of character formation), with appendices on seals (xǐyìn), engraving-block colophons, and gàoshēn / biǎowén (commissions and memorials); next, an inkstone discussion (Yàn shuō) and an ink catalogue (Mò pǔ), with an appendix on eyeglasses (yǎnjìng); next, a study of bronze vessels (Tóngqì kǎo) and ceramics (Yáoqì kǎo). The Sìkù editors note that despite Sūn Chéngzé’s controversial political record, his connoisseurship was esteemed and his collection remained valuable; Sūn Jiǒng inherited the studio tradition and produced this carefully documented work.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Yàn shān zhāi zá jì in 4 juàn was attributed to no author by name. Yànshān is Sūn Chéngzé’s studio name, and some have suspected it was made by Chéngzé; yet the books cited — Zhā Shènxíng’s Jìngyè táng shī, Wáng Shìzhēn’s Jūyì lù — are all post-Chéng-zé. Then it certainly cannot have come from Chéngzé’s hand. Investigation: Chéngzé’s grandson Jiǒng has a Yàn shān zhāi zhēn wàn jí lǎn; this book may also be Jiǒng’s compilation.

It opens with discussion of the liù shū (six principles), and appends xǐyìn (seals), engraving-board gàoshēn and biǎowén matters; next, Yàn shuō and Mò pǔ, with appended eyeglasses; next, Tóngqì kǎo and Yáoqì kǎo — all sufficient for kǎozhèng.

Although Chéngzé as a person is not worth speaking of, in the matter of calligraphy, painting, and antique objects, he excelled in both connoisseurship (hàoshì) and shǎngjiàn (appreciation); his collected holdings to this day are esteemed. Jiǒng inherited his legacy, ear-trained and eye-soaked, and has a source. His discussions one by one can detail beginning and end, and finely distinguish minute matters — also sufficient for investigation.

Respectfully revised and submitted, twelfth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng (1781).

Abstract

The Yàn shān zhāi zá jì is an early-Qīng connoisseurship and xiǎoxué bǐjì preserving the studio tradition of 孫承澤 (Sūn Chéngzé), one of the great post-Conquest Beijing collectors, into the second generation. The work is attributable to Sūn’s grandson 孫炯 (Sūn Jiǒng) on the basis of the Sìkù editors’ textual demonstration.

The book’s principal contributions:

1. Continuity of the Sūn family connoisseurship. The work documents the transmission of Sūn Chéngzé’s holdings into a later generation and the persistence of his methods. Together with Sūn Chéngzé’s own Gēngzǐ xiāoxià jì 庚子銷夏記, the work is one of the principal documents of the Sūn family connoisseurship tradition.
2. Liùshū / xiǎoxué attention. The opening discussion of the six principles of character formation, with appendices on seals and inscriptions, places the work in the late-Míng / early-Qīng xiǎoxué tradition.
3. Material-culture range. The book covers the liù shū, seals, engraving, inkstones, inks, eyeglasses, bronzes, and ceramics — an unusually wide range of object-types treated with kǎozhèng method.
4. Eyeglasses entry. The discussion of yǎnjìng (eyeglasses) — a relative novelty in China, introduced from the West in the late Míng — is of interest for the history of Chinese material culture.

Dating. The work cites Wáng Shìzhēn’s Jūyì lù (completed 1701) as a terminus a quo; it cannot be by Sūn Chéngzé (d. 1676). Sūn Jiǒng’s floruit is early-to-mid Kāngxī through the Yōngzhèng era. NotBefore 1700, notAfter 1735 (conservative bracket).

Attribution note. The catalog meta records Sūn Chéngzé as author, but the Sìkù editors’ demonstration (followed here) shows this to be impossible. The probable author Sūn Jiǒng is named in the prose but not in the catalog meta or in the WYG attribution, so the catalog meta is followed for the surface frontmatter while the body explains the corrected attribution.

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language treatment located. For the Sūn family connoisseurship tradition see scholarship on Sūn Chéng-zé’s Gēng-zǐ xiāo-xià jì and Píng-jīn guǎn jiàn-xī.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 4, Yàn shān zhāi zá jì entry.