| 99 A pair of important, very fine and rare Imperial jade table screens, each of rectangular form with a shaped top that is worked in low relief with a stylised floral scroll to both sides. One screen is delicately incised with a spray of poppies, buds and leaves within a key-fret border to one side and a poem, also bordered with key-fret, to the reverse. The incising is heightened by gilding. The other screen is similarly decorated with chrysanthemums. The stone is a palest celadon-green tone with russet markings. The screens are supported on wood stands elaborately carved with stylised scrolling lotus and other flowers. Both screens bear the Jiaqing yu ti (Imperial composition of Jiaqing) marks and Jiaqing Imperial seal marks, and of the period. Total height: 12 1/8”, 30.9 cm The seals at the end of both inscriptions closely match a pair in the Forbidden City illustrated by Contag and Wang in Seals of Chinese Painters & Collectors, no. 5, p. 577. Tao Qian (Tao Yuanming) lived circa 4th century A.D., and was one of China’s greatest poets. He resigned from office in order to pursue a life of quiet integrity with his friends, and was also famous for his love of chrysanthemums. The reference in the second line of the poem to the ‘Eastern Hedge’ alludes to a poem in which Tao Yuanming describes drinking with his friends in his garden. There may have been an ‘Eastern Hedge’ in the Imperial Flower Garden, in which case the Emperor’s reference will have been literal as well as metaphorical. The crests would appear to be a Jiaqing characteristic, for a table screen with a similar crest, see Kleiner, Chinese Jades from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, no. 125, pp. 156-7. |
The poem on the poppy screen can be translated: |