AN INSCRIBED 'DUAN' INKSTONE WITH ZITAN 'PRUNUS' BOX AND COVER SIGNED ZHUANXIAN QING DYNASTY, 19TH CENTURY, DATED TO 1830

the stone of a warm grey tone, of rounded rectangular form, with a slightly sloped recessed inkwell, the reverse partly unpolished, revealing the natural roughness of the material, inscribed in clerical script gengyin qiu zhong Zhuanxian fanggu zhongdingwen wei nian Xiangdi zuo (‘in the mid-autumn of the gengyin year, Zhuanxian following [the style of] ancient bronze inscriptions for his younger brother Nianxiang [or in the memory of the younger brother Xiang]'), followed by a second inscription in bronze script recording that ‘in the gengyin year of the Daoguang reign [this stone] was obtained from Duan River; May [the owner enjoy] long life and treasure it eternally’, corresponding to 1830, the zitan cover decorated with a branch of blossoming prunus, further incised with an inscription in running script after a poem by Li He (790-816), fitted box

The present inkstone bears the signature of Zhuanxian, who is probably Zha Chun, a Manchu from Beijing who lived in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In 1799, Zha published the seal collection of his father, Zha Li (1715-1783) titled Tonggu Shu Tang cang yin [Seal collection from the Study Hall of Tonggu]. The identity of Nianxiang remains a matter of debate although he would have been a contemporary of Zha Chun.

The fine zitanbox is carved with a line from a poem by Li He (790-816) titled ‘Song on Master Yang’s Green-Mottled Purple-Stone Inkstone’. In this version, however, two characters are changed. The poem may be translated as follows:

It is followed by the inscription meng gao wei Zhuonong jiu xiong juan xia ('box carved for ninth brother, Zhuonong, in the beginning of the fifth lunar month').

For examples of duan inkstones, see one sold in our New York rooms, 24th June 1982, lot 140; and another sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 19th January 1988, lot 505. Compare another inkstone, bearing an inscription by the famous mid-Qing period scholar-official Ruan Yuan (1764-1849), offered in these rooms, 8th April 2007, lot 837.