Qīngmìgé quánjí 清閟閣全集
Complete Works from the Pure-and-Private Pavilion by 倪瓚 (撰), edited by 曹培廉 (編)
About the work
A twelve-juǎn compilation of Ní Zàn 倪瓚 (Yúnlín, 1301–1374) prepared by the Shànghǎi bibliophile Cáo Péilián 曹培廉 in Kāngxī guǐsì (1713) as the most comprehensive NíZàn collected-works edition. The structure: 8 juǎn poetry, 2 juǎn miscellaneous prose, and 2 juǎn Wài jì (Outer Records) — shàng with anecdotes (yíshì), biographies, inscriptions, presentation poems, and mourning verses; xià with miscellaneous third-party pǐntí shī huà (appraisal verses on Ní’s painting and poetry). The text-history is complex: the Tiānshùn 4 (1460) Yíxīng Jiǎn Cháoyáng print (see KR4d0575) was the first; the Wànlì re-cut by Ní Chéng 倪珵 (his eighth-generation descendant) brought the count to 15 juǎn but was much damaged by Cáo’s time; Máo Jìn 毛晉 had also cut a shí Yuánrén jí version. Cáo Péilián consolidated these, drawing further on Zhū Cúnlǐ 朱存理’s Lóujū zázhù — which had specifically gathered Ní’s Wú-travel pieces. Máo Jìn’s separately-cut Yúnlín yíshì (Lost-Affairs of Yúnlín) was here merged into Cáo’s Wài jì. The Sìkù compilers also explicitly flag six pieces of the WYG text as forged: Tí Tiānxiāngshēnchù juànhòu, Tí Zǐhuá Zhōugōng bēizhuàn xíngzhuàng hòu, Tí Shīzǐlín tú, Chónglǎn Zǐhuá Zhōugōng bēizhuàn, Tí Zhōu Xùnxué fǔjūn yíhàn hòu, Hèlín Zhōu Yuánchū xiàngzàn piānliù — all on stylistic grounds judged “cíyì wěibǐ jué fēi Zàn bǐ”, absorbed from forged calligraphy circulating in the MíngQīng art market.
Tiyao
Qīngmìgé jí, 12 juǎn. By Ní Zàn of the Yuán. Zàn, style-name Yuánzhèn, sobriquet Yúnlín (Note: Liáng Qīngyuǎn’s Diāoqiū zálù says: “Ní Yúnlín, style-name Yuánzhèn”; and Huátíng Xià Zhèngchángyín’s preface to a piece presented to Chén Jìnzhī styles him tàishǒu — its basis is unknown. Appended here.) Man of Wúxī. His painting was in the yìpǐn class. His poetry and prose did not xièxiè (chip and polish) over bitter craftsmanship; shénsī sǎnlǎng (spirit-thought scattered-bright), yìgé (mood-frame) is naturally high — not to be measured by the rope. In the Míng Tiānshùn era Yíxīng Jiǎn Cháoyáng had a cut version; in the Wànlì his eighth-generation grandson Chéng and others recompiled — 15 juǎn in all; with age the bǎn (woodblocks) grew worn; only Máo Jìn’s shí Yuánrén jí cut survived. In Kāngxī guǐsì (1713) Cáo Péilián of Shànghǎi re-edited and re-collated, putting it through the press with much addition. Looking at Zhū Cúnlǐ’s Lóujū zázhù’s “Tí Lín Yúnzǐ shī hòu” — saying: “I have always loved his poetry; every time I see one piece one chant I record it; recently obtained the Jiǎnshì new cut, cross-collated; what was missing in him I preserve and gather into a volume — mostly Wú-travel work, in all so-many pieces of various forms and miscellaneous prose — making one juǎn of wàijí. Then the Jiǎn cut was not a complete book — that is why Péilián recompiled. In all: 8 juǎn of poetry; 2 juǎn of miscellaneous prose; 2 juǎn of wài jì — shàng lists yíshì zhuànmíng and presentation/mourning works; xià exclusively records zhūjiā pǐntí shīhuà speech. Máo Jìn had separately cut Yúnlín yíshì off-collection; Péilián gathered it as one. Zàn’s shǐmò are fully listed without omission. — There is also a separate-version Wén jí in 2 juǎn, the back of which has a Chóngzhēn wùyín (1638) postscript by Jì Tóngrén saying: “Yúnlín’s shījí — Máo Zǐjìn’s family has a cut; this wénjí of 2 juǎn I copied from the Cāngjiāng Liúshì — it is a gathering of mòjí (calligraphic remnants) and not an original; later I saw a cut version that, compared to this, had a few more pieces, divided into 4 juǎn, with arrangement slightly different. But the prose’s Jīngxī tú xù — entered from the Yíxīng xiàn zhì — is on examination just the jiéběn (excerpted version) of Tí Chén Wéiyún huà Jīngxī tú; front and back doubled and not yet checked even cursorily — superficial mess can be inferred — not as clean and orderly as this version.” — Its corrective work is rather solid. Now examining what is in this volume: Tí Tiānxiāngshēnchù juàn hòu, Tí Zǐhuá Zhōugōng bēizhuàn xíngzhuàng hòu, Tí Shīzǐlín tú, Chónglǎn Zǐhuá Zhōugōng bēizhuàn, Tí Zhōu Xùnxué fǔjūn yíhàn hòu, Hèlín Zhōu Yuánchū xiàngzàn piān liù — these are all of crude cíyì, definitely not Zàn’s brush. They must have been absorbed from forged ink-traces, which Jì Tóngrén had not yet examined. Péilián’s volume also includes them in the collection. Since they have long been transmitted thus, we preserve them with the cut and append the suspicion noted above. Respectfully collated, Qiánlóng forty-sixth (1781), second month. Compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; head proofreader: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
Qīngmìgé quánjí is the most ample of the late-imperial recensions of Ní Zàn’s collected works and is the standard citation form for NíZàn studies (alongside the KR4d0575 Ní Yúnlín xiānsheng shī jí SBCK photoreproduction of the earlier 1460 Jiǎnshì print). The Sìkù-era forgery flag is significant for modern textual scholarship on Ní: six prose pieces (titled in the tíyào) are explicitly identified as not from Ní’s hand, almost certainly absorbed from Míng-era ink-trace forgeries circulating in the Wúzhōng art market. The Wài jì’s second juǎn — third-party pǐntí shī huà on Ní’s painting — is one of the most comprehensive YuánMíng painting-critical anthologies on a single painter. Composition window: from c. 1325 (Ní’s young maturity) through to Hóngwǔ 7 (1374, Ní’s death). The Cáo Péilián editorial work (1713) is one of the better-documented early-Qīng salvage operations on a Yuán biéjí and a useful reference for Káng-xī-era textual scholarship.
Translations and research
- The vast Ní-Zàn art-historical literature draws on this collection: James Cahill, Hills Beyond a River; David Sensabaugh on Yùshān; Wen C. Fong, Beyond Representation; Maxwell Hearn, various Met catalogue essays.
- Wǔ Tóng’s modern critical edition of Ní Zàn (Shànghǎi gǔjí chūbǎnshè) is the standard Chinese-language reference.
- The Sìkù-era forgery flagging is a paradigmatic instance and is treated in studies of Míng-Qīng art-market forgery (e.g. Joseph Hsing-tang Chang’s work on Wú-zhōng forgeries).
Other points of interest
- The tíyào’s six-piece forgery flag is one of the clearest Sìkù-era statements of authentication criteria for prose ascribed to Yuán painters: cíyì wěibǐ (crude diction) → not from Ní’s hand → absorbed from forged calligraphy. This is the standard methodology in modern NíZàn studies.
- The Yúnlín yíshì — anecdote collection on Ní, separately printed by Máo Jìn — is here integrated into the Wài jì, making the WYG version the more comprehensive corpus.
Links
- WYG SKQS V1220.4, p151.