According to Confucian ideology, music, chess, calligraphy and
painting were regarded as the four necessary accomplishments of a
learned man, and Confucius himself was a talented player of the
qin, a seven-stringed wooden musical instrument.
During the spring auction of international auction house
Christie's, to start on Sunday and run until next Thursday in Hong
Kong, there will be great excitement generated by a newly
re-discovered qin that was said to be owned by Emperor Taizong
(reign AD 960-976), the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty (AD
960-1279).
The instrument was given the name Yu Ting Qing Yun, which was
inscribed on its surface during the Northern Song Dynasty (AD
960-1127) and interpreted as "Pure Harmony of the Yun Palace" by
Christie's specialists.
"The 'Pure Harmony' was the oldest documented qin of the Song
Dynasty," said Zheng Minzhong, a researcher at the Palace Museum in
Beijing, who is a renowned qin player.
Zheng saw the instrument in the studio of scholar Wu Zhenping in
the summer of 1955 in Shanghai but lost track of it after Wu passed
away in the late 1950s, he said.
"When Christie's presented the qin before me, I had complicated
feelings, as I found nothing had changed about it except its
underside had been re-lacquered."
The "Pure Harmony" instrument still sings clearly.
"It is the best qin I have ever played," said Zhang Deyi, a qin
player invited to test out the 1,000-year-old instrument.
"It has a beautiful voice in a most casual way."
The style in which the qin is constructed is known as Fuxi,
after the mythological king who was known to have made the first
musical instrument from a wutong tree (Chinese parasol). The
instrument has a graceful slim arched body and an exposed bridge
made of hardwood, which tapers gently from the shoulder to the tail
known as jiaowei or "burnt tail."
The Fuxi style is different from the scallop-edge sides
characteristic of a Xianlai qin, or "The Voice of Angels," dated to
the late Northern Song Dynasty, or the Confucius-style instrument,
which has a more austere design with simple straight
sides.
The underside of "Pure Harmony" was decorated with fine lines known
as "serpent's belly" and delicate "ox fur" crackles.
The qin is inscribed on the interior with the characters for
"Kaibao Wuchen," which reveals that it was made in the ninth year
(AD 968) of the Emperor Taizong.
Its underside bears its name "Yu Ting Qing Yun," and a seal mark
"Yushu Zhibao," or "Treasure of the Imperial Library," indicating
that it was originally in the Song Imperial collection.
The ancient instrument is to go under the hammer next Tuesday in
Hong Kong and is expected to go for 2.8 and 3.5 million Hong Kong
dollars (US$360,000-450,000).
The record price for a qin was paid for the 1,000-year-old
Dasheng Yiyin ("Music Left by the Saint").
That qin was part of the well-known Li Song Ju Collection of
renowned scholar and researcher Wang Shixiang and his late wife
Yuan Quanyou, also a scholar and artist.
It was auctioned for 8.91 million yuan (US$1.1 million) in
November 2003 by the China Guardian Auction House.
Another famous qin auctioned in recent years was the
1,000-year-old Jiuxiao Huanpei ("Heavenly Jade"), which was sold
for 3.46 million yuan (US$417,000) by China Guardian in July
2003.
(China Daily May 25, 2006)
