An Ancient Chinese Scroll Was the Star of Sotheby’s Hong Kong’s Recent Auction
The recent Sotheby’s Hong Kong will go down in history! Why, you ask? It is because a rare, 700-year-old scroll by famous calligrapher Rao Jie sold for over $32 million following a 95-minute heated bidding war. The presale estimates suggested that the piece would go for up to $1.29 million (250 million HKD).
The 20-foot-long handscroll attracted more than 200 bids. Steven Zuo, head of Sotheby’s Classical Chinese Paintings Department, informed Hyperallergic that an unidentified private collector, who bid via phone, had secured the artefact. With this auction, it has now become the most valuable Chinese calligraphy artwork sold by the auction house. He added, “Works from the Yuan Dynasty are particularly prized for their rarity, not to mention Rao Jie’s Calligraphy in Cursive Script is a rare treasure”
What is Special About the Chinese Scroll?
Calligrapher Rao Jie made the handscroll in the 14th century. Hailing from the southeast of Jiangxi province, Rao lived during the turbulent shift from the Yuan to the Ming dynasties. His style is influenced by the classical techniques of the 4th century calligrapers Wang Xizhi and his son Wang Xianzhi. It also possesses the vivacious speed of the Wild Cursive style from the Tang Dynasty.
According to pre-modern Chinese calligraphy scholar and Indiana University assistant professor Yan Weitian, “The styles of the Two Wangs are best known for their fluent, spontaneous, and highly gestural movements of brushstrokes. It is a way for calligraphers to borrow established literary work to express themselves.”
The scroll features transcriptions of two Tang dynasty essays — Han Yu’s Song Meng Dongye Xu (Preface on Seeing off Meng Jiao) and Liu Zongyuan’s Zi Ren Zhuan (Biography of a Carpenter). As per Yan, the reproduction was fairly common amongst Chinese calligraphers. It also includes over 100 additional postscripts. These postscripts or colophons offer crucial insights into an artwork’s provenance.
According to Zuo, the handscroll’s “grandeur lies not just in scale but in its unrestrained artistry. His bold, fluid strokes pulse with rhythm and vitality, a callback to the brush strokes of abstract paintings. Rao Jie’s brushwork breathes in total freedom. It is a historical testament and also a time capsule bridging the vast expanse of time.”
The postscripts can be traced back to the 4th and longest-reigning ruler of the Qing dynasty, Qianlong Emperor. He was known for his love of painting and calligraphy, having amassed an extensive art collection, which can be seen in the Palace Museum, Beijing and the Taipei Palace Museum. But the Emperor didn’t just make the postscript, he also designed a frontispiece (“Divinely Transmitted Purity” ) for the piece and recorded it in his catalogues.
Image Courtesy – Hyperallergic
Contributor
