'WU MING': AN EXTREMELY RARE AND IMPORTANT LACQUERED AND ZITAN GUQIN

Late Ming Dynasty

Footnotes

明晚期 「無名」仲尼式古琴

Provenance: R.H. van Gulik (1910-1967) acquired in Beijing in 1936, and thence by descent

Published and Illustrated: R.H.van Gulik, The Lore of the Chinese Lute, 2011 (first published in Tokyo 1940), Bangkok, 2011, p.5, figs.1a-1b.

來源：高羅佩（1910-1967）在1936年於北京獲得，並由後人保存迄今

著錄：高羅佩，《琴道》，2011年（第一版發表於1940年東京）， 曼谷，2011年，第5頁，圖1a-1b.

Robert Hans van Gulik (1910-1967), also known as Gao Luopei (高罗佩) was a famous Dutch diplomat, musician, writer and sinologist. He was a great admirer of traditional Chinese literati culture and apart from practicing Chinese calligraphy everyday (the inscription on the cover of the box on the present lot was written by him), he also learnt to play the guqin, of which the present lot was said to be his favourite instrument. The guqin was often played by van Gulik at diplomatic events, helping him to forge close ties with China's elite. His book The Lore of the Lute was the first academic study of the instrument and its role in Chinese culture, introducing it to a Western audience for the first time. Van Gulik was one of the rare and great European sinologists at the time who embodied the literati ideal and through his rigorous study and translations of classical Chinese texts allowed Chinese culture to speak for itself acting as a bridge of understanding between East and West.

Van Gulik was born in Zutphen in the Netherlands, but from the age of three he lived in Jakarta, with his father who was a medical officer in the Dutch East Indies. While there, he learned Indonesian and Chinese as well as other languages. In 1935, van Gulik earned his PhD from Utrecht University with a dissertation on Hayagriva, the Mantrayanic aspect of Horse-cult in China and Japan. His linguistic skills allowed him to secure a position in the Dutch Foreign Service from 1935 where he was largely based in Japan and China. During the Second World War he was with the Dutch mission in Chongqing. While in Chongqing, he married Shui Shifang (1912-2005), the daughter of a Qing dynasty official.

Van Gulik was a polymath with broad interests and expertise. Aside from his interests in the guqin and traditional Chinese culture, he was a writer of detective fiction. His 'Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee' (first published in Tokyo in 1949, with illustrations by himself) was based on the 7th century statesman and detective Di Renjie. Based on this, he earned a reputation as an expert on Imperial Chinese jurisprudence. His other pioneering scholarly works focused on Chinese sexuality and his Sexual Life in Ancient China and Erotic Colour Prints of the Ming Period are still major reference works in the field. Van Gulik was also an enthusiast of gibbons and kept them as pets as well as writing a study of them: The Gibbon in China.

The Chinese inscription on the cover of the case, written by van Gulik himself, explains the provenance and origin of the name for the present guqin:

古琴雅名指不勝屈。名琴為歷代所寶者。以數十計知音。高士 先審其音而後賦以名。名音相應如鸞應鳳。後世之人不原其道。得琴則臆倣古雅而名之。故名與音舛。余久患之。以為琴學日 滅。丙子秋莫於燕京偶得古琴。其細音鏗鏘如振索鈴。喁喁如 兒女私語。其大音簌簌如風雨驟至。殷殷如震雷響山。豈能輒 狀其玅而限之以名乎。因却多名之溷而名曰無名。丁丑六月荷 蘭高羅佩書於東京公署

Which may be translated as:

The qin of antiquity had countless elegant names. Of all the fabled names that have been treasured down the ages, there exist only a few dozen qin for which we can know their sound. Lofty scholars would bestow a name upon a qin only after having first assessed the instrument's sound. The name and the sound must be in accord with one another, just as are the male and female phoenix.

Later generations have not walked this path. Upon acquiring a qin they use their imagination to imitate the elegance of antiquity to give it a name, which only results in a dissonance between name and sound. This has long been a concern of mine. I believe that the study of the qin is dying out with each passing day. In the late autumn of the Bingzi year (1936) I happened to acquire an antique qin in Yanjing (Beijing). The quiet notes jingle-jangle as if you had stirred a string of bells, whispering as furtive words between a man and a woman. The loud notes rustle as the sudden arrival of rain and the wind, rumbling as thunder echoing throughout the mountains. How could I describe such excellence and how could I presume to limit it with a name? I therefore spurned this quagmire of many names and gave it the name Wuming, Nameless. Written in the Dingchou year (1937) by Gao Luopei (Robert van Gulik) of Holland at the Tokyo legation.

The name of the present musical instrument Wuming (無名), literally 'Nameless', inscribed on the underside of the instrument at the head in green, can be found in the opening lines of the Daodejing (道德經): 'Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth' (無名，天地之始). It reflects van Gulik's deep and erudite knowledge not only of the Chinese literati aesthetic of understatement, but also of ancient philosophical texts.

One of the large square seals on the underside reads Jiyizhaiji (集義齋記), 'Seal of the Studio of Collected Righteousness'. Aside from being the seal of van Gulik, being the name of his library and scholar's studio in Tokyo, it was originally the name of the Dutch factory in Canton (Guangzhou), which in the 18th century was called the Jiyi hang (集義行) 'Factory of Collected Righteousness'.

Further below on either side of the sound box is a poetic couplet which reads:

琴聲雖可狀
琴意誰可聽

Which may be translated as:

Though the sounds of the qin may take form
Who can hear what it means

The well-known guqin musician Wu Jinglüe (1907-1987) inscribed these lines from the poem Jiangshang tan qin (江上彈琴) 'On the river playing the qin' by the famous Song dynasty scholar and statesman Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072). The poem likely held some special significance for van Gulik, who had previously used this couplet as the epigraph of his book 'The Lore of the Chinese Lute'.

Furthermore, there is another inscription by van Gulik himself which reads:

中和琴室所藏之琴此為第一

Which may be translated as:

This is the best of all the qin kept in the Zhonghe qin room.

Van Gulik wrote this line as a parallel to an inscription on the qin named Kunshanyu (崑山玉). This qin was owned by Ye Shimeng, the first qin master and teacher of Van Gulik and carried the inscription 'This is the best of all the qin kept in the Shimeng Library'.

Compare with a related lacquered guqin of the same shape, Ming dynasty, illustrated in Zithers of the Forbidden City Classics of the Forbidden city, Beijing, 2010, p.132, no.24; see also another related lacquered guqin, Ming dynasty, illustrated in Ibid., p.114, no.19.

See a related Prince of Lu guqin, dated 1637, which was owned by van Gulik, which was sold at Poly Beijing, 7 June 2021, lot 5187.

We wish to thank Karwin Cheung for the translation of inscriptions on the present lot.