Important Chinese Art
Important Chinese Art
A RARE GILT-BRONZE SUNDIAL QIANLONG MARK AND PERIOD, DATED GENGZI YEAR, CORRESPONDING TO 1780 | 清乾隆庚子年（1780） 鎏金銅日晷 《大清乾隆庚子年製》款
Auction Closed
November 6, 06:16 PM GMT
Estimate
50,000 - 70,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
A RARE GILT-BRONZE SUNDIAL
QIANLONG MARK AND PERIOD, DATED GENGZI YEAR, CORRESPONDING TO 1780
清乾隆庚子年（1780）鎏金銅日晷 《大清乾隆庚子年製》款
of semi-hemispherical form with deep rounded sides rising to an everted rim, inscribed to each side of the rim with Chinese solar terms, incised to the interior with a diagonal table matrix and set with a gnomon, all supported on three long feet formed by whisps of ruyi-shaped clouds extending under the rim and terminating in dragon heads, the side with an incised eight-character inscription reading Daqing Qianlong gengzi nianzhi ('Made in the Gengzi year during the Qianlong period of the Great Qing dynasty')
Diameter 27.5 cm, 10⅞ in.
Inscribed with a cyclical date corresponding to 1780, this sundial is a variation of the more classic type of sundial with a stone disk and a needle placed at an angle on a stone platform. Known as a hemispherum, this sundial tells both the time of day and the season via the movement of the shadow or nodus cast by the pointed gnomon. The point of the shadow indicates the time of day, whilst the height reached by this point, signals the time of year – the shadow cast by the winter sun is much higher than the one in summer.
Gilt-bronze sundials of this type are unusual. A much smaller porcelain hemispherum, made in imitation of lacquerware, is illustrated in John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, Geneva, 1999, vol. II, pl. 250; and another was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 8th April 2013, lot 3011.