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Lot Essay
Yilibu (1772-4 March 1843) a Qing dynasty official during the reign of the emperor Daoguang (1821-1850), was the Viceroy of Liangjiang, which comprised Jiangnan and Jiangxi provinces during the Qing dynasty, from 1839-1840. As an emissary of the emperor he assisted in negotiating the Treaty of Nanjing in August 1842, which ended the First Opium War between Britain and China.
The inscription, Tiantai shan di er tu, refers to the Tiantai mountains, and implies that the image on the screen is a small version of the mountains. These mountains have long been considered holy and have been associated with both Daoism and Buddhism. By the end of the 6th century it became a major Buddhist cult center, and Tiantai became the name of one of the major schools of Buddhism. Over the centuries, temples, cloisters and shrines were erected on the mountain, which became a center of pilgrimage.
In the poem, Yilibu describes an outing to the Tiantai Mountains with his friend Diancang lao weng, both longing for the land of the immortals. Yilibu compares their experiences of enjoying blossoming peach trees, eating peaches and drinking spring water, to the well-known legend of Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao of the later Han dynasty and their experiences in the Tiantai Mountains, which included meeting two beautiful women, an experience not shared by Yilibu and his friend. This story is illustrated in the handscroll, Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao in the Tiantai Mountains by Zhao Cangyun (active late 13th-early 14th century) now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and illustrated by Maxwell Hearn and Wen Fong in Along the Riverbank, New York, 1999, pp. 80-87, pl. 3 and text pp. 80-89 and 148-49, where the inscriptions on the scroll, which describe the story in detail, are translated.
The inscription, Tiantai shan di er tu, refers to the Tiantai mountains, and implies that the image on the screen is a small version of the mountains. These mountains have long been considered holy and have been associated with both Daoism and Buddhism. By the end of the 6th century it became a major Buddhist cult center, and Tiantai became the name of one of the major schools of Buddhism. Over the centuries, temples, cloisters and shrines were erected on the mountain, which became a center of pilgrimage.
In the poem, Yilibu describes an outing to the Tiantai Mountains with his friend Diancang lao weng, both longing for the land of the immortals. Yilibu compares their experiences of enjoying blossoming peach trees, eating peaches and drinking spring water, to the well-known legend of Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao of the later Han dynasty and their experiences in the Tiantai Mountains, which included meeting two beautiful women, an experience not shared by Yilibu and his friend. This story is illustrated in the handscroll, Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao in the Tiantai Mountains by Zhao Cangyun (active late 13th-early 14th century) now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and illustrated by Maxwell Hearn and Wen Fong in Along the Riverbank, New York, 1999, pp. 80-87, pl. 3 and text pp. 80-89 and 148-49, where the inscriptions on the scroll, which describe the story in detail, are translated.