Lot 79 Dα

The disc belongs to a series of archaistic jade works of similar design and size, which the Qianlong Emperor probably commissioned from 1736 to at least 1750. They imitate archaic models from the Western Han dynasty. Several similar discs, also numbered, can be found in the Palace Museums in Beijing and Taipei as well as in various private and museum collections.



The numbering on the edge of the series is based on the "Thousand Character Classic" (Qianzí Wen), a poem from the 6th century consisting of 1000 different characters. The character zhang on this disc corresponds to the 112th character in the Qianzi Wen. The highest known number in the series to date is 200, engraved on a disc from the de Luca Collection, auctioned at Sotheby's Hong Kong on 8 April 2011.

清乾隆 禦制「宜子孫」玉璧
雙款：「乾隆年制」及「章字一百十二號」
文獻：黃英，《乾隆款千字文仿古玉器新探——兼論乾隆皇帝的制玉追求》，故宮博物院院刊，2023年第7期，83-112頁
來源：德國威斯特法倫州私人收藏，家族幾代相傳

該玉璧屬於乾隆時期一系列設計與尺寸類似的禦制千字文仿古玉器中的一件，即乾隆帝約在公元1736 年至1750年 (或更晚) 期間下令所制。這些玉器在風格上參照了西漢時期刻有吉祥字句的設計。類似的玉璧存在於北京故宮博物院、臺北國立故宮博物院，不同的私人或博物館收藏中，且均有編號。
該系列玉璧器身邊緣編號以《千字文》為基礎，一篇源自公元6世紀由1000個不重復的漢字所組成的韻文。本拍品編號章字對應了《千字文》中第112字。 迄今為止，一般認為該系列乾隆玉器中已知的最高編號為 200，其所屬玉璧 (L. de Luca私人收藏) 於2011 年 4 月 8 日在香港蘇富比拍賣行拍賣。