清十九世紀 《南典觀音般若波羅密多心經》冊

formé de 22 double-pages, comprenant 22 illustrations à la gouache sur feuille de pipal, chacune faisant face au texte chinois écrit à l'encre d'or du Prajnaparamita-hrdaya-sutra, le Sutra du Coeur et du Vajracchedika-prajnaparamita-sutra, le Sutra du Diamant, le tout sur papier bleu encadré de soie brochée jaune pâle, couverture formée de deux plats en hongmu

The texts accompanying the illustrations comprise one chapter each of the Sutra of the Heart of Transcendent Knowledge and the Diamond Sutra. Two similar albums are known. One example comprises 20 dark blue paper pages mounted on ivory silk with miniatures on pipal leaves facing an incomplete version of Kumarajiva's translation of the Diamond Sutra, dated to the 18th or 19th century, illustrated in Trésors de Chine et de Haute Asie. Centième anniversaire de Paul Pelliot, Paris, 1979, n°104, B.N., coll. Smith-Lesouëf CH 57. A second example is in the collection of the Palace Museum, Taipei, and is published in The Art of Mounting Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, Taipei, 2008, pp. 138-139. 

In its use of dark blue royal paper inscribed in gold and its binding technique, the present album is based on similar albums painted by court artists working in one of the three Imperial painting workshops in the Forbidden City during the reign of the Qianlong emperor. Compare, for instance, an Imperially commissioned album of eighteen luohan painted on pipal leaves and accompanied by Imperial poems, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 8th October 2010, lot 2631.