An Imperial Tianbai 'Yi jing miao kan hui' Seal Qing Dynasty, Qianlong Period

of square section, the sides carved to resemble a rocky mountain, decorated in low relief around the mountain with a continuous scene depicting four scholars under verdant pine trees dwarfed by the towering peaks, with two scholars conversing with one another in a courtyard, and another standing under a blossoming pine tree with a horse, the opposite side with a scholar resting reclusively by a bare trunk, all under ruyi-shaped clouds near the top, the square seal face crisply carved in seal script with six characters reading yi jing miao kan hui ('When the mind is quiet, one is receptive to the discovery of beauty'), the translucent stone of a creamy white tone

As clearly visible in the catalogue photos, there are tiny chips to the extremities and minor surface wear and scratches, but overall it is in good condition. There is slightly too much of a red tinge in the catalogue photo. In reality it is a warmer, more attractive creamy-beige colour.
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On the Qianlong Tianbai Seal ‘Yi jing miao kan hui’
Guo Fuxiang

Imperial seals of the Qing dynasty encompass many types and a wide range. Just considering the content of the inscriptions, we find seals of nobility titles, personal names, and reign names; seals with Palace building names; collector’s seals; and seals of memorable quotations and lines of poetry. Though these different types of seals have different characteristics, they all are valuable reflections of the emperor’s thoughts and interests. Among all the seals made by the Qianlong Emperor, those with poetic inscriptions are particularly worthy of our attention. The ‘Yi jing miao kan hui’ seal, currently offered by Sotheby’s Hong Kong, is just such a seal.

This seal is made of soapstone. In carving the seal, the artist followed the shape of the stone to carve a landscape, people, buildings, and scenery. The face of the seal is 4.2 centimeters square, and the body of the seal is 9.3 centimeters high. The inscription has five characters: ‘Yi jing miao kan hui.’ This seal is explicitly described in the Catalogue of Qianlong Seals (Qianlong Baosou), housed in the Beijing Palace Museum, and it perfectly matches the impression and this description in all particulars, including the size of the seal and the style and layout of the seal characters. Hence, we can affirm that this seal is the genuine article of the Qianlong period. Because there are records that we can search detailing the origin of the inscription and the process of the seal’s manufacture, this seal is one of the most revealing of all the seals of the Qianlong emperor that have appeared to date. Here I will discuss several aspects of this seal so that one may better understand it.

First, the Qianlong emperor selected the inscription for this seal from among his own poems—a choice reflecting his cultivation in and practice of the traditional art of calligraphy. As is widely known, the Qianlong emperor was a highly cultivated man. Throughout his life, he enjoyed reciting and writing poetry. Over 40,000 poems were published in his name—an amount comparable to the entire corpus of extant Tang poetry. The emperor’s poetry yielded a number of poems and verses that resonate when read aloud. Such agreeable lines quite naturally provided new material for the selection of inscriptions for imperial seals. One important feature of the Qianlong emperor’s seals is that the emperor selected their inscriptions from among his poetry; this was not the case for seals that previous emperors made. These inscriptions, replete with poetic emotion and picturesque imagery or having profound implications, reflected the emperor’s calm, cultured inner life. They were truly some of the best lines of the emperor’s poetry, selected for seal inscriptions perhaps to engage in self-promotion. Such lines include “The moon in the water, each shining clear and bright” (Shuiyue liang chengming), “[Only at present do we pass on the tradition of the White Deer Academy;] the seats and desks have a lingering fragrance” (Jixi you yuxiang), “The painting depicts the moon; the water makes sounds” (Hui you yuese, shui you sheng), and “The autumn colors that enter one’s eyes are beyond poetic description” (Ru yan qiuguang, jin shi shi). According to the Catalogue of Qianlong Seals, “Starting with the seal that reads ‘The moon in the water, each shining clear and bright,’ twenty-six of the emperor’s seals used lines from his poetry.” Hence there were, in fact, many more seals than these four quoting from his poetry. The inscription for the present seal, ‘Yi jing miao kan hui,’ was selected from a poem of his on the study of calligraphy.

The Qianlong emperor had a deep interest in traditional Chinese calligraphy. Throughout his life, he copied out revered models of calligraphy passed down through history, attaining considerable perceptual acuity in the art. From the end of August to the beginning of September 1745, the Qianlong emperor accompanied the empress dowager north of the Great Wall to the Rehe Imperial Summer Retreat. During leisure moments on the trip he practised his calligraphy, following a copybook with the work of masters of the past. It was on this trip that he wrote the poem “Learning Chinese Characters” (Xuezi). The poem translates, “Brush in hand, I face the autumn twilight and pass the time away gazing out the balcony at the evening landscape. I have no need for fine calligraphy paper, for I can still discriminate good calligraphy from the marks of a hairpin. When the mind is quiet, one is receptive to the discovery of beauty, and when the spirit is clear, the aesthetic space lacks noise. Countless calligraphers have graced the ages, but I love only the writing of Mi Fu [1051-1107].” This poem realistically captures the circumstances of the occasion and describes the emperor’s reaction. Thus, the emperor was sitting in his study during an evening of early autumn, and though not using the best quality paper, in these quite and comfortable circumstances he became absorbed in the calligraphy of past masters and could not help but resonate with what they found beautiful. The crux of this poem is the line “When the mind is quiet, one is receptive to the discovery of beauty, and when the spirit is clear, the aesthetic space lacks noise.” That is, only when one is clearheaded and calm in mind can one experience the beauty of calligraphy. The poem thus aptly describes what the emperor, in his study of calligraphy, actually experienced and sought to achieve. Hence, we can readily understand why the Qianlong emperor used this line of poetry as the inscription for a seal. “When the mind is quiet, one is receptive to the discovery of beauty” (Yi jing miao kan hui) accurately describes his experience in the study of the traditional art of Chinese calligraphy.

Second, we can trace the manufacture of this seal in the archival records, and we know that it was made by Ye Dingxin, a well-known ivory artisan in the workshops of the Qing Imperial Household Department. According to the workshop records of the Imperial Household Department, on June 15, 1746, “Rank Seven Staff Supervisor Samuha came and said that Palace Eunuch Hu Shijie would hand over two plain soapstone seals and one already designed soapstone head seal, and would convey the imperial instructions, which were to polish the seals down to the same size, to follow the design of the head seal, and to have Ye Dingxin do the work. On the same day, Rank Seven Staff Supervisor Samuha took one of the two soapstone seals—now with a design of a landscape, people, and a house—and gave it to Palace Eunuch Hu Shijie for the emperor to inspect. The emperor issued the following instructions: Make the taller seal the same height as the head seal with a midriff bulge, and create a mountain peak. Also, follow the shape to create a mountain peak on the shorter seal. On July 7 Warehouseman Bai Shixiu took the two refashioned seals and the already designed head seal to the Palace and gave them to Palace Eunuch Hu Shijie to present to the emperor.” This archival record states details of how an Inner Court ivory artisan, under instructions from the Qianlong emperor, carved a set of seals from June to July in 1746. If we compare this description with the present seal, we find that they match in many particulars. First, on the composition of the seal set, the description mentions two seals and a head seal polished down to the same size. Clearly, the purpose of this project was to make a set, that is, to make two trailing seals for a head seal that the emperor frequently used. Moreover, the description makes clear that the head seal had a bulging midsection. According to the record in the Catalogue of Qianlong Seals, the ‘Yi jing miao kan hui’ seal is one of a set of three seals, and the other two seals are the oval-shaped head seal ‘Yilan Tang’ (Yilan Hall) and the square trailing seal ‘Qianlong chenhan’ (Calligraphy by the Qianlong emperor). The composition of this set of seals and the shapes of the seals match the archival description. Next is the material of the seals. The archival record states that the three seals are all made of soapstone. The Catalogue of Qianlong Seals too notes that all the seals in the ‘Yi jing miao kan hui’ seal set are made of soapstone, and also accurately notes that they are all like the ‘Yi jing miao kan hui’ seal in being lustrous, smooth, and adaptively limpid. Another point of interest is the subject and form of the carving of the seal knob. The archival record states that two of the seals were a lustrous white, that the relevant artisan created a design consisting of a landscape, people, and buildings, and that the emperor instructed him to add mountain peaks to the two seals, which the artisan did. We thus know that the completed soapstone seals had designs with a landscape, people, and buildings against a background of mountains. The four sides of the body of this ‘Yi jing miao kan hui’ seal has a shallow carving of a house, a pavilion, people, and a horse interspersed among mountains and trees. And the carving on all four sides links up to form a panorama of mountains and people, just as described in the archival record. All of this attests to the fact that this ‘Yi jing miao kan hui’ seal is one of the three soapstone seals in the set described in the archive as completed in 1746.

Most important of all, the archival record reveals to us that the present seal was made by the renowned Inner Court ivory artisan Ye Dingxin. Ye Dingxin was an outstanding ivory artisan who worked in the Palace during the Yongzheng (1723-1735) and Qianlong (1736-1795) reigns. According to the archival records, he came from Jiangnan and was already working in the ivory workshops of the Imperial Household Department as early as 1726. On April 8, 1726, Vice Director Hai Wang brought out a piece of agarwood weighing four kilograms. The Yongzheng emperor commanded that the workshop find someone who could determine whether this piece was k­ālāguru wood (a dark, oily agarwood) or an inferior piece of quick-burning agarwood. That same day the ivory artisan Ye Dingxin recognized the piece as quick-burning agarwood, not k­ālāguru wood. This evidence indicates that Ye Dingxin not only carved ivory but also evaluated materials used in making objets d’art. Another archival entry concerning Ye Dingxin’s early activities at court mentions a petition by Imperial Household Department Supervisor Hai Wang on June 13, 1731. Hai Wang wrote that Ye Dingxin and company were living at the Yuanmingyuan Imperial Gardens over an extended period and were diligent in their work, and he asked the Yongzheng emperor to reward them for their efforts. The emperor replied, “Compensate them according to their ranks.” The same day Hai Wang got the titles and amounts of compensation for these men. For Ye Dingxin, the compensation was ten taels of silver, an amount indicating that even during the Yongzheng reign, Ye Dingxin had gained considerable recognition for his skills. During the Qianlong reign, his skills became even more refined, even to the point where the Qianlong emperor personally commissioned him to work on particular objets d’art. In addition to the ‘Yi jing miao kan hui’ seal, archival entries say that he worked on the following three projects: In February 1739 Shi Tianzhang, along with Ye Dingxin, were given 393 soapstone seals of all sizes. They organized those that were incomplete and ground down those with inscriptions. In March 1747 the emperor had Ye Dingxin carve two soapstone seals after a carved soapstone seal, and in December 1747 the emperor had him carve a white soapstone seal after a head soapstone seal and carve a yellow soapstone seal after a seal with a dragon design. We thus see that during the Qianlong reign, Ye Dingxin was given such important assignments as making seals for the emperor to use.

Extant historical sources indicate that Ye Dingxin worked in the Palace for over twenty years. He no doubt produced a considerable number of objets d’art, but up until now we could not verify that any particular piece was his handiwork. With the appearance of this ‘Yi jing miao kan hui’ seal, we now have such a piece. This is indeed an extraordinary stroke of luck.

Third, this seal, with its typical yet high-quality artistry, is representative of its age. During the early Qing dynasty, the workshops of the Imperial Household Department did not have specialized artisans who carved the knobs of imperial seals. Most of the knobs of stone imperial seals were carved by ivory artisans. The ivory artisans of the Inner Court applied their familiar artistic techniques for carving ivory to carving stone seals. The seal knobs that they produced contained much detail and charm, and artistically had much in common with ivory carvings of the same period. One can clearly see this in carving of the knob of the present ‘Yi jing miao kan hui’ seal. The entire seal knob makes use of intaglio lines and low relief on a flat ground. The elements in the knob’s scene—now sparse, now dense—are artfully arranged. And depth in the three-dimensional scenery is clearly layered. Scenic elements are also artfully drawn in various ways. People, buildings, and trees are carved with lines that are sometimes bold, sometimes fine, in a way that makes them come alive. Mountain boulders are drawn in outline in such a way that, in the light, the slight depressions and protrusions give the viewer a strong sense of depth. Scenic elements are clearly placed with respect to one another in a way that seems uncontrived but in fact is artfully arranged without any stray traces. It is this naturalism that draws the viewer in to savor the scene again and again.