Asian Art in London
29 October - 7 November 2009
6. A Songhua Inkstone
Qianlong incised four-character zhuanshu mark and of the period (1736–95)
The rectangular inkstone with a protruding circular water-well at the top. The slightly raised edges incised with archaic ‘S’ scrolls. The base recessed and inscribed in the centre with the four-character reign mark in zhuanshu script.
The fine horizontally-grained stone is softly polished to a silky touch. The original zitan fitted box inset with a turquoise border at the interior.
8 cm long; 5.5 cm. wide
The small size of this inkstone and the fact that it has remnants of cinnabar in the well, indicate that it could have been used for writing comments on memorials sent by ministers and officials while the Emperor was travelling.
Green stone from the Songhua River in Jilin province was originally used as whetting stones. The Kangxi emperor spotted its potential and asked an ink stone to be made from it, which proved to be exceptionally suitable for grinding ink, and it became a new resource for making ink stones for the seventeenth and eighteenth-century Chinese court. It has an attractive light green colour, tight structure and fine grain, smooth to the touch but not too smooth to prevent the ink forming. The Kangxi emperor was proud of the fact that the origin of this fine stone was close to the Manchu homeland, and decreed it for the sole use of the court.
Most Songhua ink stones in the palace collection bear reign marks, and many of them have remnants of red ink on them, so obviously they were often used for grinding red ink, probably because it has the added benefit that the colour of red cinnabar looks very attractive against the pale moss green.
