A fine Songhua inkstone, box and cover Carved mark and period of Qianlong

the companion to lot 23, the reverse also incised with the four-character mark Qianlong nianzhi ('made in the Qianlong period'), the grey-coloured stone box well carved on the cover with a pair of cranes beneath an overhanging pine (original fitted brocade box)

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 17th November 1988, lot 249.

Zhou Nanquan in 'Songhuashi yan' (Songhua Inkstone), Wenwu, 1980, no. 1, pp. 86-87, notes that Songhua stone was used for the production of imperial inkstones from the early to mid-Qing dynasty.  In the Qianlong emperor's poetry collection, Shengjing tuchan zoayang shier shou (Twelve Miscellaneous Poems on the Native Products of Shengjing), the emperor praises the stone as 'Songhua yu' ('Songhua jade') and mentions that it is the product of the Yuantong River in Jilin province in northeast China and can be used for making inkstones.  Zhou further notes that in the 39th year of Qianlong's reign (corresponding to the year 1774 A.D.), official records mention a total of 120 Songhua stone pieces, whether worked or as raw material, in the Palace collection.  Records from the fourth day of the twelfth month of the 39th year of Qianlong's reign note that on three occasions, raw material amounting to 38 pieces from Jilin province, was sent to the palace and, out of five stone pieces, eight inkstones and their boxes were made.  It was customary with Songhua stone from the palace to have the inkstones in original boxes of the same material, usually using the different stratified colours.  Currently there are eighty Songhua instones in the Palace Museum collection, of which ten are attributed to Kangxi, sixteen to Yongzheng, thirteen to Qianlong, nine to Jiaqing, one to Daoguang and five to Guangxu's reigns.

A very similar inkstone with a nearly identical cover design was included in Selected Treasures of Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 1990, cat.no. 238.  See also a Yongzheng Songhua inkstone of related form and design included in the Special Exhibition of Sunghua Inkstone, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1993, cat.no. 47; a Qianlong inkstone and cover of rectangular shape carved with pine trees and cranes, ibid., cat.no. 57; as well as the companion to the present piece in lot 23 of this catalogue.