50 - The Property of a Gentleman, to be offered without reserve (Lots 1 - 56)

The Property of a Gentleman, to be offered without reserve (Lots 1 - 56) A Chinese pottery tortoise-shaped inkstone and cover Han dynasty Naturalistically modelled as a tortoise standing four-square on short limbs with the forelegs resting naturally on the ground and the hind legs stretched backwards, its head gently raised and inclined towards the right, with a charmingly genial expression, the recessed tortoise shell forming an ink reservoir, surmounted by a domed shell forming the cover, the surface carved with the Eight Trigrams, the marginal and anal scute of the carapace carved with regular geometric patterns of straight lines, 24.5cm long x 17.8cm wide x 8.5cm high. (Import Duty Charged on the Hammer Price)落槌價徵收進口關稅 Provenance: British private collection, assembled in Hong Kong 1988-1998. 漢 陶製龜形八卦紋蓋硯 來源：英國私人收藏，於1988至1998年間在香港購藏。 Cf. A similar Han dynasty tortoise-shaped inkstone was sold at Bonhams, London, on 7 November 2019, lot 29. Another example of a tortoise-shaped inkstone, dating from the Sui to early Tang dynasty, is in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession no. 2003. 82a, b. 參閲：一件相似的漢代龜形硯於2019年11月7日在倫敦邦瀚斯拍賣，拍品編號29。另一件隋至唐初的龜形硯藏於美國紐約大都會藝術博物館，館藏編號2003. 82a, b。 The tortoise, qilin, phoenix, and dragon are regarded as 'Four Divine Beings' (Si Ling). The Book of Rites records: “The qilin is steadfast and benevolent; the phoenix discerns the rise and fall of order and disorder; the tortoise foretells good and ill fortune; and the dragon is endowed with the power of transformation. Thus are they known as the Four Divine Creatures.” The Four Divine Beings embodied an ideal order in which human affairs, ritual conduct, and all living things each occupied their proper place within the greater harmony of Heaven and Earth. In framing the rites, the sages took into consideration Heaven and Earth, the changing seasons, the movements of the celestial bodies, human nature, and the myriad forms of life. As the Book of Rites, in its chapter Liyun, further records: “Thus, when the dragon is brought into accord, the creatures of the waters do not plunge beneath the surface; when the phoenix is brought into accord, the birds do not take wing in fear; when the qilin is brought into accord, the beasts do not flee; and when the tortoise is brought into accord, the human heart does not depart from its proper nature.” This presents an ideal vision of an ordered world brought into being through ritual cultivation, in which the Four Divine Beings themselves are imagined as capable of being brought into harmony with the human realm. Among them, the tortoise, believed to reveal good and ill fortune, discern what was yet to come, and perceive the course of human affairs, came to embody the ordering of the human world. The Book of Rites further states: “the kings, holding the divining stalks and tortoise shells, ordered the rites of sacrifice, proclaimed the words of blessing and prayer, and established the institutions of government. In this way, the state was governed by ritual, every official had his proper charge, every affair its appointed function, and every rite its rightful order.” Its armoured shell, its ability to dwell in both water and on land, and its remarkable endurance in the face of hunger and thirst inspired in early peoples a profound reverence for the tortoise. From these natural attributes emerged an imaginative world in which the tortoise acquired meanings that transcended the bounds of its physical existence. As early as the age of the primordial tribes, tortoise shells were employed for divination. By the Shang dynasty, the practice of turtle divination had flourished: tortoise shells were exposed to intense heat until they cracked into myriad patterns, known as guixiang, or “tortoise signs”. Through these signs, people sought to discern auspicious and ominous portents, and to divine the fortunes of prosperity and adversity. In the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), the Western Han historian Sima Qian writes in the Biographies of the Tortoise divination (Guice Liezhuan): “From antiquity, whenever a sage king was about to establish a state, receive the Mandate of Heaven, or embark upon a great undertaking, when did he ever fail to prize divination as an aid to the accomplishment of what was right? Of the times before Tang and Yu, little can now be known. From the rise of the Three Dynasties onwards, each rested its foundation upon auspicious omens. The portent at Tushan heralded the rise of Xia Qi and the founding of the Xia dynasty; the divination of the flying swallow accorded with the destiny through which Yin flourished; and the auspicious divination concerning the hundred grains foretold the rise of the Zhou kings. Whenever a ruler