- 2712
A BLACK 'LINGBI' ROCK QING DYNASTY
Estimate
250,000 - 300,000 HKD
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Description
black 'Lingbi' limestone with white veining and orange inclusions, two-part hongmu stand
Catalogue Note
The present rock, Clouds in Flight, has been formed with a distinctive, overhanging peak to the centre. Robert M. Mowry in Worlds within Worlds, Harvard University, 1996, p.168, notes that "illustrations in woodblock-printed books from the late Ming dynasty [feature] a dominant 'host' peak (zhushan) with an overhang, the 'host' flanked and buttressed on either side by a smaller 'guest' peak (keshan)."
Scholar's rocks with a pronouced overhanging peak are derived from landscapes of the Song and Yuan dynasties; known in Chinese as mountains with an "awkward overhang." Such peaks found favour from the Ming dynasty, and were often depicted in paintings. See a rock of similar form to the present piece painted in the fifteenth-century handscroll by Xie Huan, "The Nine Elders of the Mountain of Fragrance", illustrated in Wai-kam Ho, Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, Clevand Museum of Art, 1980, p.155.
Compare a 'lingbi' rock with a similar pronounced overhang and also with a two-part stand, illustrated in op.cit., cat.no.7. See also two related limestone rocks with an overhanging peak in op.cit., cat.nos.43 and 44.
Scholar's rocks with a pronouced overhanging peak are derived from landscapes of the Song and Yuan dynasties; known in Chinese as mountains with an "awkward overhang." Such peaks found favour from the Ming dynasty, and were often depicted in paintings. See a rock of similar form to the present piece painted in the fifteenth-century handscroll by Xie Huan, "The Nine Elders of the Mountain of Fragrance", illustrated in Wai-kam Ho, Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, Clevand Museum of Art, 1980, p.155.
Compare a 'lingbi' rock with a similar pronounced overhang and also with a two-part stand, illustrated in op.cit., cat.no.7. See also two related limestone rocks with an overhanging peak in op.cit., cat.nos.43 and 44.