Years 1680-1699
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Ancient England Travel Books 1501-1700 Stradivarius Sciences 1600-1800 Physics Astronomy
See also : Ancient England Travel Books 1501-1700 Stradivarius Sciences 1600-1800 Physics Astronomy
Album by BADA SHANREN
1
1684
2016 SOLD for HK$ 77M by China Guardian
Zhu Da was a distant descendant of the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming. The seizure of power by the Qing is a disaster for his family. To protect himself, he becomes a monk and exhibits his frenzied madness, not necessarily simulated.
Time is passing. Zhu can finally leave the monastic habit and devote himself to painting and calligraphy. In 1684 CE, at the age of 59, he takes as his artist name Bada Shanren, which translates as 'the man of the eight great mountains'. It doesn't mean anything, but these characters evoke with a stylized writing the words 'laugh' and 'cry'.
The art of this irreducible rebel is unprecedented in its themes and style. He draws nature in small insignificant details. His brush stroke systematically includes contrasts of ink and sometimes even blur. His remarkable freedom of execution will influence the modern Chinese art.
Bada Shanren often assembles his works in albums in which at least one image is dated. An album of ten leaves 24 x 38 cm made in 1684 was sold for HK $ 77M by China Guardian on May 13, 2016, lot 500.
Nine of them are equally separated for calligraphy and image, the tenth is a whole calligraphy. The similarity of composition for different subjects, for example the bird and the fish, shows the importance given by the artist to elementary forms in that phase of his restarting.
Time is passing. Zhu can finally leave the monastic habit and devote himself to painting and calligraphy. In 1684 CE, at the age of 59, he takes as his artist name Bada Shanren, which translates as 'the man of the eight great mountains'. It doesn't mean anything, but these characters evoke with a stylized writing the words 'laugh' and 'cry'.
The art of this irreducible rebel is unprecedented in its themes and style. He draws nature in small insignificant details. His brush stroke systematically includes contrasts of ink and sometimes even blur. His remarkable freedom of execution will influence the modern Chinese art.
Bada Shanren often assembles his works in albums in which at least one image is dated. An album of ten leaves 24 x 38 cm made in 1684 was sold for HK $ 77M by China Guardian on May 13, 2016, lot 500.
Nine of them are equally separated for calligraphy and image, the tenth is a whole calligraphy. The similarity of composition for different subjects, for example the bird and the fish, shows the importance given by the artist to elementary forms in that phase of his restarting.
2
1698
2020 SOLD for RMB 71M by China Guardian
From 1681 to 1684, Zhu Da aka Bada Shanren expanded his repertoire of subjects to include animals like birds and fish in addition to flowers and vegetables. His earliest surviving landscape paintings are dated to this period. Starting in 1693, landscapes became a major subject of his work.
An album of seventeen leaves 30 x 22 cm made in 1698 bringing together flowers, birds and landscapes was sold for HK $ 34M by Christie's on December 2, 2008, lot 1938, and for RMB 71M by China Guardian on December 1, 2020, lot 290 illustrated in third position in the post sale press release.
An album of twelve leaves 29 x 20 cm made in 1703 bringing together flowers, birds, fish and fruit was sold for $ 3.13M by Sotheby's on March 16, 2017, lot 844.
An album of seventeen leaves 30 x 22 cm made in 1698 bringing together flowers, birds and landscapes was sold for HK $ 34M by Christie's on December 2, 2008, lot 1938, and for RMB 71M by China Guardian on December 1, 2020, lot 290 illustrated in third position in the post sale press release.
An album of twelve leaves 29 x 20 cm made in 1703 bringing together flowers, birds, fish and fruit was sold for $ 3.13M by Sotheby's on March 16, 2017, lot 844.
1687 Principia by Newton
2016 SOLD for $ 3.7M by Christie's
Isaac Newton was the most brilliant scientific innovator of all time. Late in his life he laid down the rules that had guided his unprecedented method. One of these rules summarizes in a simple sentence how he created the modern physics : to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.
One of his outstanding skills was to develop mathematical methods of high complexity to analyze and support his own physical theories. Even before he was 30, he compared the motion of the planets and the fall of the bodies. Essentially preoccupied with his own understanding of the mechanism of the universe, he published reluctantly.
In 1684 in London, the scientists of the Royal Society challenged themselves to find the mathematical formulation of the law of motion of the planets described by Kepler. All failed. Halley visits Newton in Cambridge. He is stunned : Newton knows the solution but has lost his calculation notes. The orbital movement of a celestial body is an ellipse whose position of the other body is one of the foci.
The scientific stake is highly important and Halley manages to persuade Newton to disclose in their entirety his results concerning the law of universal gravitation. Edited and financed by Halley, Newton's Latin book entitled Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica is published in 1687 with the imprimatur of the Royal Society.
The book is difficult in the opinion of the author himself and the circulation probably did not exceed 300 copies but it is of such scientific importance that Halley and Newton took care of organizing their sale through booksellers. One of them named Samuel Smith is more specifically entrusted to the supply onto the Continent and receives about 50 copies for that purpose.
On December 14, 2016, Christie's sold one of the Smith 'Continental' presentation copies of the Principia for $ 3.7M from a lower estimate of $ 1M, lot 167. It is bound in its original unrestored morocco with gold and red inlays. The recipient is not identified.
A Royal copy of the Principia in its original morocco luxury binding was sold for $ 2.5M by Christie's on December 6, 2013, lot 170. It had been presented by Halley to King James II, patron of the Royal Society. The Royal bindings from that reign are extremely rare.
One of his outstanding skills was to develop mathematical methods of high complexity to analyze and support his own physical theories. Even before he was 30, he compared the motion of the planets and the fall of the bodies. Essentially preoccupied with his own understanding of the mechanism of the universe, he published reluctantly.
In 1684 in London, the scientists of the Royal Society challenged themselves to find the mathematical formulation of the law of motion of the planets described by Kepler. All failed. Halley visits Newton in Cambridge. He is stunned : Newton knows the solution but has lost his calculation notes. The orbital movement of a celestial body is an ellipse whose position of the other body is one of the foci.
The scientific stake is highly important and Halley manages to persuade Newton to disclose in their entirety his results concerning the law of universal gravitation. Edited and financed by Halley, Newton's Latin book entitled Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica is published in 1687 with the imprimatur of the Royal Society.
The book is difficult in the opinion of the author himself and the circulation probably did not exceed 300 copies but it is of such scientific importance that Halley and Newton took care of organizing their sale through booksellers. One of them named Samuel Smith is more specifically entrusted to the supply onto the Continent and receives about 50 copies for that purpose.
On December 14, 2016, Christie's sold one of the Smith 'Continental' presentation copies of the Principia for $ 3.7M from a lower estimate of $ 1M, lot 167. It is bound in its original unrestored morocco with gold and red inlays. The recipient is not identified.
A Royal copy of the Principia in its original morocco luxury binding was sold for $ 2.5M by Christie's on December 6, 2013, lot 170. It had been presented by Halley to King James II, patron of the Royal Society. The Royal bindings from that reign are extremely rare.
Newton's deluxe "Principia" far surpasses $1 million @ChristiesBKS today, reaching $3.7 million! https://t.co/V3Bwq6aGsu pic.twitter.com/4xardPPXsM
— Fine Books Magazine (@finebooks) December 14, 2016
1688 The Fragrance of a Nation by Yun Shouping
2021 SOLD for HK$ 60M by Christie's
A landscape painter competing with the four Wangs of the early Qing, Yun Shouping managed to be instead acknowledged as the best painter of flowers.
Yun admired the application to flowers of the mogu technique by Xu Xi seven centuries earlier during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The mogu, that may be translated as boneless, is using color wash instead of outline for executing a figuration.
The Fragrance of a nation in Clearing spring is an ink and color on silk 135 x 68 cm dated from a wuchen year that matches 1688 CE. This re-interpretation of Xu is a masterpiece of the later career of Yun, aged 55, two years before his death.
The emanating fragrance of the title is suggested by five flowers in a gradual maturity from the bud to a large lavender bloom.
This hanging scroll was sold for HK $ 60M from a lower estimate of HK $ 3M by Christie's on November 29, 2021, lot 867. Its silk is in an almost pristine condition.
Yun admired the application to flowers of the mogu technique by Xu Xi seven centuries earlier during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The mogu, that may be translated as boneless, is using color wash instead of outline for executing a figuration.
The Fragrance of a nation in Clearing spring is an ink and color on silk 135 x 68 cm dated from a wuchen year that matches 1688 CE. This re-interpretation of Xu is a masterpiece of the later career of Yun, aged 55, two years before his death.
The emanating fragrance of the title is suggested by five flowers in a gradual maturity from the bud to a large lavender bloom.
This hanging scroll was sold for HK $ 60M from a lower estimate of HK $ 3M by Christie's on November 29, 2021, lot 867. Its silk is in an almost pristine condition.
1690 Kangxi Soapstone Seal
2016 SOLD for HK$ 49M by Sotheby's
The Kangxi Emperor, who was a hard worker, was devoting his leisure time to knowledge, philosophy and calligraphy. He used for that purpose two studio rooms, the Yangxingdian in the Forbidden City and the Yuanjianzhai in a pavilion of an imperial garden.
Kangxi had about 130 seals for identifying his consultation of documents or expressing his opinion. The soapstone, easy to carve and in nice shade, was used extensively during his reign thanks to a new abundance of this mineral. His successors will prefer the jade.
A Kangxi seal in soapstone was sold for HK $ 49M by Sotheby's on April 6, 2016, lot 3102.
The mark 5.9 x 5.9 cm is clear, symbolic and effective. The central inscription indicates Yuanjianzhai as the location of its use. This inscription is flanked left and right with the undulating silhouettes of the tiger and the dragon and terminated at both ends by the symbols of heaven and earth, yin and yang, between which the emperor himself is the only intercessor.
This seal may have been shown in 1690 to the missionary Jean-François Gerbillon. Invited in the Yangxingdian to inspect the imperial seals, he observed that a possibility of textual and graphical duality was practiced in very few marks.
The Yuanjianzhai seal is topped in a lighter hue of the soapstone with a mythical beast that is altogether powerful and caring, for an overall height of 6.9 cm from that piece.
Kangxi had about 130 seals for identifying his consultation of documents or expressing his opinion. The soapstone, easy to carve and in nice shade, was used extensively during his reign thanks to a new abundance of this mineral. His successors will prefer the jade.
A Kangxi seal in soapstone was sold for HK $ 49M by Sotheby's on April 6, 2016, lot 3102.
The mark 5.9 x 5.9 cm is clear, symbolic and effective. The central inscription indicates Yuanjianzhai as the location of its use. This inscription is flanked left and right with the undulating silhouettes of the tiger and the dragon and terminated at both ends by the symbols of heaven and earth, yin and yang, between which the emperor himself is the only intercessor.
This seal may have been shown in 1690 to the missionary Jean-François Gerbillon. Invited in the Yangxingdian to inspect the imperial seals, he observed that a possibility of textual and graphical duality was practiced in very few marks.
The Yuanjianzhai seal is topped in a lighter hue of the soapstone with a mythical beast that is altogether powerful and caring, for an overall height of 6.9 cm from that piece.
1691-97 Kangxi Southern Tour
The Manchu Qing Dynasty had first seized Northern China. By organizing and pacifying Southern China, the Kangxi Emperor became the great re-unifier of this vast country.
The Kangxi Emperor had a high opinion of his duties and responsibilities and his personal commitment was intense. The Qing Dynasty was still recent and it was challenged in the border provinces. The six inspection tours conducted by the emperor in the south between the 24th and the 47th year of his reign are intended for the assimilation of these reluctant regions.
Kangxi is not afraid to go to war but prefers peace. His tours are opportunities to link with the Four Occupations in their local particularities : gentry, peasants, craftsmen and merchants. The loyalty to the Emperor requires to understand and to be understood. Kangxi is a great statesman, lucid, responsible and effective.
The second trip took place during the 29th year of the reign, 1689 CE. It was fruitful and promising and they must preserve its memory. An imperial decree orders the execution of a scroll divided into twelve parts showing in a continuity the steps of the long journey.
Two years later, in order to mark the prestige of this operation, Kangxi required the imperial palace workshops to display this journey through a series of handscrolls. The management of the project is entrusted to the best landscape painter of that time, Wang Hui.
I do not know where Wang was during the 1689 Imperial inspection. It does not matter. A connoisseur of the Song and Yuan landscape art, he worked by copy and imagination, including in his work picturesque scenes with numerous figures caught in everyday life.
The landscape is depicted with realism all along the way in a graphic style inspired from the Yuan maps, enough detailed to be used for guiding a trip along thousands of kilometers.
For seven years from the 31st year of Kangxi, the team of artists applies strictly on a silk strip 68 cm high the detailed instructions of Master Wang concerning the topographic features, the more or less close distance to villages and mountains, the actions of the emperor and the daily life of the people. The style is magnificent.
The overall length of the twelve scrolls, completed around the 37th year of the reign, is 200 meters. Nine scrolls are complete and kept in various museums. The scroll number 6 was plundered by the French during the Boxer War and divided in or near Bordeaux, possibly in a deceased estate in the 1930s. The whereabouts of the scrolls 5 and 8 are not known.
The Kangxi Emperor had a high opinion of his duties and responsibilities and his personal commitment was intense. The Qing Dynasty was still recent and it was challenged in the border provinces. The six inspection tours conducted by the emperor in the south between the 24th and the 47th year of his reign are intended for the assimilation of these reluctant regions.
Kangxi is not afraid to go to war but prefers peace. His tours are opportunities to link with the Four Occupations in their local particularities : gentry, peasants, craftsmen and merchants. The loyalty to the Emperor requires to understand and to be understood. Kangxi is a great statesman, lucid, responsible and effective.
The second trip took place during the 29th year of the reign, 1689 CE. It was fruitful and promising and they must preserve its memory. An imperial decree orders the execution of a scroll divided into twelve parts showing in a continuity the steps of the long journey.
Two years later, in order to mark the prestige of this operation, Kangxi required the imperial palace workshops to display this journey through a series of handscrolls. The management of the project is entrusted to the best landscape painter of that time, Wang Hui.
I do not know where Wang was during the 1689 Imperial inspection. It does not matter. A connoisseur of the Song and Yuan landscape art, he worked by copy and imagination, including in his work picturesque scenes with numerous figures caught in everyday life.
The landscape is depicted with realism all along the way in a graphic style inspired from the Yuan maps, enough detailed to be used for guiding a trip along thousands of kilometers.
For seven years from the 31st year of Kangxi, the team of artists applies strictly on a silk strip 68 cm high the detailed instructions of Master Wang concerning the topographic features, the more or less close distance to villages and mountains, the actions of the emperor and the daily life of the people. The style is magnificent.
The overall length of the twelve scrolls, completed around the 37th year of the reign, is 200 meters. Nine scrolls are complete and kept in various museums. The scroll number 6 was plundered by the French during the Boxer War and divided in or near Bordeaux, possibly in a deceased estate in the 1930s. The whereabouts of the scrolls 5 and 8 are not known.
1
2016 SOLD for $ 9.5M by Sotheby"s
The longest fragment of the sixth scroll, 68 cm x 4.75 m, was sold for $ 9.5M from a lower estimate of $ 4M by Sotheby's on September 14, 2016, lot 576.
In a bird's-eye view demonstrating a remarkable control of the topographic representation, boats travel around the many islands of a river. It depicts dense poulations in their daily life and may be the terminal end of the still incomplete sixth scroll.
The tweet below shows a detail. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
In a bird's-eye view demonstrating a remarkable control of the topographic representation, boats travel around the many islands of a river. It depicts dense poulations in their daily life and may be the terminal end of the still incomplete sixth scroll.
The tweet below shows a detail. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Single-owner collection of Chinese paintings @Sothebys after 25 years off the market. https://t.co/eMYfycoQK2 pic.twitter.com/aWOpS6WtaM
— AntiquesTradeGazette (@ATG_Editorial) August 5, 2016
2
2010 SOLD for HK 36.5M by Sotheby's
A fragment 68 cm x 3.62 m of the sixth scroll surfaced in Hong Kong in 2009 and was sold for HK $ 36.5M from a lower estimate of HK $ 2.5M by Sotheby's on April 7, 2010, lot 1824.
It is depicting the visit of the Kangxi emperor to the towering Jiangtian Si temple on Mount Jinshan in the middle of the Yangtze River. It features on the far left the emperor himself, standing on a terrace under a yellow canopy and escorted by many officials dotting the island,
It is depicting the visit of the Kangxi emperor to the towering Jiangtian Si temple on Mount Jinshan in the middle of the Yangtze River. It features on the far left the emperor himself, standing on a terrace under a yellow canopy and escorted by many officials dotting the island,
3
2013 SOLD for € 3.36M by Briscadieu
A fragment 68 cm x 2.48 m including dock scenes was sold for € 3.36M by Briscadieu on April 27, 2013.
Two other fragments of the same scroll, 2.58 m and 3.28 m, were listed separately on March 8, 2014 by Briscadieu. One of them was sold for € 1.17M. The other fragment was sold for € 600K before fees.
Two other fragments of the same scroll, 2.58 m and 3.28 m, were listed separately on March 8, 2014 by Briscadieu. One of them was sold for € 1.17M. The other fragment was sold for € 600K before fees.
1695 Still Life by Coorte
2014 SOLD for £ 3.45M by Sotheby's
Adriaen Coorte has no biography. Fortunately he signed or monogramed his artworks, and some of them were dated from 1683 to 1705. 64 paintings are identified, and no drawing. Unknown to his contemporaries, he is referred only once, in 1695-1696, in Middelburg when the local league of St Luke fines him for an unauthorized sale.
The still lifes by Coorte have neither predecessor nor successor. Most of them show an arrangement of fruit or asparagus on the corner of a stone ledge. From the mid 1690s, his very unusual practice of oil on paper glued on canvas or panel reinforces the assumption that the author is not a professional artist.
The butterfly appears in the same period. In flight, its wings fully open or closed do not bring realism in the composition, following the lush positioning of small animals in the art of van Kessel.
In contrast to the exuberance of van Kessel, Coorte is a minimalist. The careful texture of the fruit with stems and leaves is the unique theme of the composition, but he likes the vertical formats and the butterfly comes to cleverly break the monotony of the upper part of the picture.
Such a decorative research based on a humble iconography anticipates Chardin's researches while no link can be imagined between the Middelburg amateur and the French artist of the following century.
A paper on panel 31 x 23 cm, undated but realized around 1695, showing three peaches and a butterfly, was sold for £ 2.05M by Bonhams on December 7, 2011 and for £ 3.45M by Sotheby's on December 3, 2014, lot 37. The image is shared by Wikimedia:.
The still lifes by Coorte have neither predecessor nor successor. Most of them show an arrangement of fruit or asparagus on the corner of a stone ledge. From the mid 1690s, his very unusual practice of oil on paper glued on canvas or panel reinforces the assumption that the author is not a professional artist.
The butterfly appears in the same period. In flight, its wings fully open or closed do not bring realism in the composition, following the lush positioning of small animals in the art of van Kessel.
In contrast to the exuberance of van Kessel, Coorte is a minimalist. The careful texture of the fruit with stems and leaves is the unique theme of the composition, but he likes the vertical formats and the butterfly comes to cleverly break the monotony of the upper part of the picture.
Such a decorative research based on a humble iconography anticipates Chardin's researches while no link can be imagined between the Middelburg amateur and the French artist of the following century.
A paper on panel 31 x 23 cm, undated but realized around 1695, showing three peaches and a butterfly, was sold for £ 2.05M by Bonhams on December 7, 2011 and for £ 3.45M by Sotheby's on December 3, 2014, lot 37. The image is shared by Wikimedia:.
1697 Molitor Stradivarius violin
2010 SOLD for $ 3.6M by Tarisio
The Parisian salon host Juliette Récamier owned a violin by Stradivari. The stradivarius label is dated 1697. A legend attributes a previous ownership of the instrument to Napoléon Bonaparte. After Mme Récamier, the next owner was Molitor, a general in Napoléon's army.
The Molitor was sold for $ 3.6M by Tarisio on October 14, 2010. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The Molitor was sold for $ 3.6M by Tarisio on October 14, 2010. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
