A PALE GREEN JADE IMPERIALLY-INSCRIBED BOULDER Qianlong (2)A PALE GREEN JADE IMPERIALLY-INSCRIBED BOULDERQianlongCrisply carved as a rounded rocky grotto enclosing a bearded scholar strumming a guqin on a ledge, all beside gnarled pine trees, finely incised flowing water underneath, the top right section incised in elegant kaishu calligraphy with an Imperial poem, the stone of even pale green tone, wood stand. 16cm (6 1/4in) wide. (2).清乾隆 御題詩《松陰橫琴》巧雕玉山子Provenance: an English private collection來源：英國私人收藏The inscription on the present boulder reads: 御製松陰橫琴抱琴松下來，獨坐聽流水。聲不在絲桐，卻在心與指。Which may be translated as:Imperially made 'Playing qin under the shade of pine trees'.Coming under the pine trees, I hold a qin in my arms.I sit alone listening to the sound of the flowing water.The sound does not come from the strings and wutong wood.But comes from my heart and fingers.The poem is published in book 13 of the 'Collected Imperial Poems' (御製詩初集卷十三). In the anthology it is recorded as being written in the Guihai cyclical year corresponding to 1743, when the Qianlong emperor inscribed it on a painting by Zhu Lunhan 朱倫瀚 (1680-1760), of a scholar playing the qin. The poem, like the carving, depicts a scholar playing the qin, attuning himself not only to the music but the nature of the cosmos. The sound of flowing water relates to the physical stream and sound of the water, but also the famous melody 'Flowing Waters' (流水) played by the famed qin player Bo Ya of the Eastern Zhou period, to his cherished friend Zi Qi, who understood and appreciated the meaning conveyed through the music. The names Bo Ya and 'Flowing Waters' thus came to be almost synonymous with the notion of intuitive understanding and deep friendship. Hence the term for a close friend in Chinese is zhiyin (知音), literally, 'someone who knows the sounds'. For the Qianlong emperor, an accomplished qin player himself, the musical instrument would not only have exemplified his mastery and guardianship of traditional Han Chinese literati culture, but also his understanding that music and governance in a Confucian context were related; a musician who understands harmony can bring harmony to the realm. The present lot belongs to a small group of jade boulders and screens which were carved with Imperial poems authored by the Qianlong emperor and which additionally relate to paintings - thus connecting the written word with pictorial and three-dimensional representation. For other examples in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, see The Refined Taste of the Emperor: Special Exhibition of Archaic and Pictorial Jades of the Ch'ing Court, Taipei, 1997, nos.43, 62, 64 and 66.Compare with a related Imperial inscribed pale green jade boulder depicting Wang Xizhi, Qianlong, which was sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 4 October 2016, lot 50.public_sentiment_keywords: Jade +han ** Jade +qin ** inscription+jadeis_parse: 20230413image: yuzhan_bonhams_item/51930676.jpgsold_price_type: £