Ɏ A HIGHLY IMPORTANT ARCHAIC YELLOW JADE BI DISK, ON AN IMPERIALLY INSCRIBED ZITAN STAND, FROM THE PERSONAL COLLECTION OF THE QIANLONG EMPEROR (HONGLI)

The jade bi disc from the Han dynasty, China, 206 BC-220 AD. Finely carved in low relief to each side with raised circular bosses neatly arranged within narrow plain borders encircling the rim and enclosing the central aperture. The translucent stone of a yellowish-beige tone with white cloudy patches, russet veining, and areas of calcification.

The stand from the Qianlong period, China, 1736-1795. Intricately carved from dark reddish-brown zitan in the form of a gui tablet with a pointed end rising from turbulently crashing waves. The front is decorated with a central carved boss showing the qian trigram encircled by two dragons, the reverse meticulously engraved and gilt with a lengthy poetic inscription. (2)

Inscriptions: The reverse with a poem written by the Qianlong Emperor, followed by two of his personal seals, ‘Bide’ (Assisting Virtue) and ‘Langrun’ (Clear and Luminous).

It followed the rites of the Zhou dynasty and aspired to the splendor of the Han capital,
Even and harmonious in perfect form, like precious jade pieces set upon pedestals.
Its radiant hue reflects the morning light,
And the auspicious signs of the oracle foretell a bountiful autumn harvest.
Imperially composed and inscribed.

Provenance: Lempertz, Cologne, 15 November 1963, lot 1097. Collection of Klaus Nierhoff, Wiesbaden, Germany, acquired from the above and thence by descent. A copy of the collector’s handwritten personal notes including a picture of the present lot and a cut-out of the 1963 Lempertz catalog entry accompany this lot. Klaus Nierhoff (1926-2011) was a German pharmacist and an avid collector of Chinese art, particularly bronzes and jades.
Condition: Superb condition with only minor natural wear. The disk with traces of ancient weathering, minuscule nibbling, and natural fissures, some of which may have developed into small hairline cracks. The stand with expected natural age cracks and a small loss to the upper back. The group with a fine naturally grown patina overall.

Weight: 476 g (the disk), 876 g (total)
Dimensions: Diameter 18 cm (the disk), Height 29.9 cm (the stand)

Jades from the personal collection of Hongli, the Qianlong Emperor, are of the utmost rarity. Famed for his deep passion for ancient jades, Qianlong built the greatest personal collection ever assembled by a Chinese emperor—or indeed by any individual in history. Archaic jades from his collection form the cornerstone of the surviving Qing Imperial holdings. The Emperor personally authenticated, classified, and often composed poems in praise of cherished pieces, producing more than 800 jade-related verses among the 40,000 poems he wrote in total.

The present yellow jade bi was precisely the kind of archaic piece that most captured Qianlong’s attention. Selected for the extraordinary purity of its stone, its exceptionally smooth and luminous polish, and its remarkable state of preservation, it stood out even among the many thousands of Han dynasty bi known to him. Only such exemplary pieces were elevated to the highest status: mounted in precious zitan stands, inscribed with imperial poems and seals, and placed on display in the most favored halls of the Forbidden City.

To honor and protect his treasures, Qianlong personally commissioned the most exquisite zitan wood stands, such as the present example. In his view, while paper might last a thousand years, jade—the crystallized essence of heaven and earth—was indestructible. On occasion, he even had his own calligraphy engraved directly onto archaic jades, transforming them into both literary and artistic treasures.

The very best jades, such as the present bi, were never subject to direct inscription. Qianlong could not bring himself to alter the natural beauty of these ancient witnesses to history. Instead, he devised the practice of commissioning inscribed zitan stands, which allowed him to add his poems and seals without disturbing the purity of the jade itself. In this way, the most treasured pieces remained pristine, while at the same time being elevated into a union of antiquity, imperial verse, and precious mount.

For the most exquisite and unusual jades entering his collection, Qianlong typically recorded his personal observations in verse.
On the present bi, he wrote: “It followed the rites of the Zhou dynasty and aspired to the splendor of the Han capital, aven and harmonious in perfect form, like precious jade pieces set upon pedestals.”
Here, Qianlong consciously linked this bi to the moral authority of antiquity. The Zhou dynasty rites were, for him, the very foundation of order and legitimacy, while the Han represented imperial splendor at its height. By casting this jade as embodying both Zhou ritual orthodoxy and Han grandeur, he was implicitly situating his own reign within that unbroken lineage of civilization and virtue. The reference to evenness and harmony reflects his larger political ideal: a balanced empire where Confucian order prevailed under his rule.
He then continued: “Its radiant hue reflects the morning light, and the auspicious signs of the oracle foretell a bountiful autumn harvest.”
In these lines, Qianlong turns to the bi’s physical qualities—its luminous color, its translucency, and its divine purity—and reads them as omens of prosperity. The comparison to the morning light recalls renewal and vitality, while the mention of a bountiful harvest directly ties this jade’s perfection to the Emperor’s role as guarantor of cosmic harmony and agricultural abundance.

For Qianlong, the purity of the jade was never just aesthetic: it was hard evidence that Heaven itself endorsed his rule. As he remarked more than once, “Jades of this type are numerous, yet when I encounter this one I feel compelled to compose a poem”; and elsewhere, “I have many such pieces, but on seeing this one I am moved to write.” Such comments reveal the Emperor’s connoisseurial mindset: each bi was not simply admired as an antiquity but transformed into a vehicle for imperial reflection and authorship.

After personal inspection, Qianlong ordered the most appealing bi to be stored in the so-called “hundred treasure boxes” reserved for his favorites, with only the very best of these mounted for permanent display. While larger examples were sometimes set into heavy rectangular table screens of zitan or rosewood, this should not be taken as a measure of importance. In reality, it was not size but quality—above all color, translucency, and purity—that determined a bi’s prestige.

Discs of the finest material, such as the present example, revealed their most dramatic beauty in direct interplay with sunlight. Because the sun’s angle shifted constantly, the stands for such jades were made relatively light, allowing them to be repositioned throughout the day so that the disc could catch the light and glow with its full radiance.

The present stand demonstrates the extraordinary ingenuity of the imperial craftsmen. Its front is decorated with a central carved boss showing the Qian trigram, which secures the bi safely in place. The design is both protective and practical: the boss locks the disc so it cannot slip and break, yet it does not interlock permanently, allowing the bi to be lifted out for close inspection. The precision is astonishing—the boss fits the aperture of the disc to within a tenth of a millimeter—proving beyond doubt that this very bi and this very stand were made for one another. It was a brilliantly clever invention, ensuring that the most precious jades could be admired, handled, and safeguarded all at once.

Archival records confirm that both formats were in use: bi could be “inserted into a zitan chaping (table screen)” or “mounted on a stand (zuo),” and in many cases were dispatched to the Maoqin Hall to have the Emperor’s verses carved upon them. These mounts elevated the bi beyond their archaic ritual role, presenting them instead as objects of literati contemplation and imperial self-expression.

The Imperial records are replete with such commissions. For example, in the 35th year of Qianlong’s reign (1770), a Han bi with a “sleeping cocoon” motif (蚕繭纹,cán jiǎn wén, literally “silkworm cocoon pattern”) was presented from the Ruyi Hall and ordered to be set in a dragon-engraved zitan mount; shortly thereafter it was sent to Maoqin Hall for the addition of a poem. Such entries closely parallel the present work, which bears on its reverse a Qianlong Imperial poem, accompanied by two incised and red-lacquered seals reading Bide (Assisting Virtue) and Langrun (Clear and Luminous).

Both seals are documented among the personal repertory of seals employed by the Emperor: Langrun in particular recalls his favored Langrun Garden in the Yuanmingyuan. Their presence here, together with the formula “Imperially composed and inscribed,” firmly situates the inscription within Qianlong’s characteristic practice of uniting ancient jade, precious mount, imperial verse, and seal in a single work of historical and artistic resonance.

Literature comparison:
Compare a wood-mounted Qijia-culture jade bi inscribed with two Imperial poems, dated to the Qianlong period, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Near identical
Auction: Beijing Poly International Auction, 6 June 2015, lot 6309
Estimate: RMB 6,800,000 or approx. EUR 1,097,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: An exceptionally large and rare imperially inscribed zitan-mounted in gui-shape archaic jade bi, Qianlong period, Qing dynasty/Western Han period
Expert remark: Compare an example of identical form, material, and manner of carving, inscribed with the very same poem as the present lot. It is highly likely that this stand and the present example were originally conceived as a pair.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 22 April 2021, lot 9
Price: HKD 53,771,000 or approx. EUR 6,370,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: An exceptionally large and extremely rare zitan-mounted imperial inscribed archaic jade bi, Eastern Han dynasty, the inscription and the stand dated to the gengyin year of the Qianlong period (corresponding to 1770)
Expert remark: Compare the related albeit more elaborate forms and manners of carving with similar materials, raised bosses, trigram, and gilt-inscribed poem with two red seals. Note the size (30.8 cm).

#expert video FAS1025