Asian Art in London
29 October - 7 November 2009
5. A Tianhuang Seal
Kangxi period (1662–1722)
The rectangular seal with its finial finely carved as a crouching lioness with her head turned towards her young clambering up her rear haunch. The wellpolished, semi-translucent stone a reddish beeswax-yellow tone with some fine paler striations.
Side inscription:
Huang Shiqi zi (Seventeenth Son of the Emperor)
Seal script can be translated (relief zhuanshu, fourteen characters):
Without striving for it, one is in danger of losing the Dao; Without showing integrity, one is in danger of changing his integrity.
5 cm. high; 4.5 cm. square
Yinli (1697–1738) was the twenty-seventh son of the Kangxi emperor, and the Seventeenth Prince (many of his brothers died at birth or very young). He was an early supporter of his fourth brother Yinzhen, later the Yongzheng Emperor, and was one of the only three beneficiaries in the aftermath of the bloody power struggle for the throne. When Yinzhen became the emperor, he was promoted to the position of King of Guo (Guojunwang), and later promoted again to qinwang, the highest position attainable after the Emperor.
Yinli was said to be exceptionally bright and able in government. He was also proficient in poetry and calligraphy, and fond of travelling. The seal script on the current seal very much reflect the Neo-Confucian teachings that he would have received in his studies, a reminder that one should constantly seek the cultivation of the mind and be mindful of one’s integrity.
The carving of the lions on this seal is of superb quality. Its rendering of musculature of the animal, as well as the fine, meticulous incision on the tails and mane, all point to a master carver in the league of Yang Yuxuan, who was active in the early Qing period and made pieces for the court (a similar seal by Yang Yuxuan, also carved with a lioness and a lion cub on the finial, is in the Palace Museum Beijing and illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures from the Palace Musum – Scholar’s Objects, Hong Kong, 2009, p. 257 – fig. 6) The face of the lion on the current seal is also very similar to that of a mythical beast on a soapstone seal made for the Yongzheng emperor (illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of The Palace Museum – Seals, Hong Kong 2006, p. 218 – fig. 7).
