Set
of 15 Imperial jade stamps/seals set, attributed to Qianlong period
(1735-1796), Qing dynasty
Extremely high quality of carving of hard black jade,
worthy of the Qianlong Royal Court.
Size of each of 6 rectangular Dragon jade stamp: 3 cm
x 5 cm x 8 cm;
Weight of each of 6 rectangular Dragon jade stamp: 372-374
g;
Size of each of 6 square jade stamp: 3 cm x 3 cm x 8
cm;
Weight of each of 6 square jade stamp: 225 g - 228 g;
Mohs hardness: 8.0-8.5;
Size of the wooden box: 17” x 10.75” x 4.75” inches =43.7
cm x 27.5 cm x 12 cm;
Weight of the box with all jade seals: 20 kg 200 g;
Condition: perfect condition for the age.
Fifteen
jade seals have different shape and bottom seals. What is common that all four
sides are covered with calligraphy and
characters of two languages: 1) Xiaozhuan (small seal script) and in 2) Manchu,
The top of the seal is decorated with an archaic dragon.
1) Seal
#1 - Rectangular parallelepiped seal - 乐善堂 - means “Happy and kind, Emperor use the stamp
in his own poems and books”.
2) Seal #2 - Oval cylinder seal - Seal characters with red background is 如是观 meaning “The Emperor's attitude is like Buddha’s
attitude”, the three characters are from a famous Chinese Buddha book “Jing
Gang Jing”, similar to Bible.
3) Seal #3- Oval cylinder seal - Seal characters with red background are 意在笔先 meaning “Think well before starting painting or
writing”.
4)
Seal #4 - Large cylinder
seal - Seal characters with red background are 皇帝之宝 meaning “Stamp for Emperor Treasure”.
5) Seal #5 - Rectangular tower seal. Seal characters
with red background is 养心殿 which is “The
house name, where Emperor lives and sleeps”.
6) Seal
#6- Square tower seal. Seal characters
with red background is 戒得堂宝 meaning for “Stamp for
Jie De Tang”, Jie De Tang is a place where Emperor Kangxi always go for
leisure.
7) Seal
#7 - Square Tower - Seal characters
with red background is 敬天尊祖
meaning “Honor God and ancestors”.
8) Seal #8 - Square Tower: Seal characters with red
background is 皇帝奉天之宝 meaning “Emperor Stamp representing a God”.
9) Seal #9 - Square Tower. Seal characters with red
background is 养心殿宝, meaning the “Stamp for Yang Xin Dian”, which is Emperor's
meeting room and office.
10) Seal #10 -
Rectangular Tower - Seal characters with red
background is 重华宫, which is the “Name of the palace emperor lives”.
11) Seal #11- Rectangular
Tower. Seal characters with red background is 敬腾怠 meaning the “Emperor wants that his
Governors work hard and with honor”.
12) Seal #12
- Square Tower. Seal characters
with red background is 敕命之宝 meaning “Emperor's
command”.
13) Seal #13
Translation is coming
14) Seal #14
- Rectangular Tower. Seal
characters with red background is 三希堂精鉴玺 meaning “The appreciation stamp for San Xi
Tang”, which is the study room of emperor.
15) Seal #15 - Rectangular Tower. Seal characters with red background is 古稀天子之宝, meaning “Old longevity emperor's stamp”.
16) Huge
Imperial Seal. Seal
characters with red background is 敕命之宝,
meaning “Emperor's command of the Army”.
Small
Seal Script (Chinese: 小篆, xiǎozhuàn) or Qin Script (秦篆, Qínzhuàn), is an archaic form
of Chinese calligraphy. It was standardized and promulgated as a
national standard by the government of Qin Shi Huang, the founder of the Chinese Qin dynasty.
Tongki fuka akū hergen.
According to the Veritable
Records [zh] (Manchu: ᠮᠠᠨᠵᡠ ᡳ ᠶᠠᡵᡤᡳᠶᠠᠨ ᡴᠣᠣᠯᡳ; Möllendorff: Manju i Vargiyan kooli; Chinese: 滿洲實錄; pinyin: Mǎnzhōu Shílù), in 1599
the Jurchen leader Nurhaci decided to
convert the Mongolian
alphabet to make it
suitable for the Manchu people. He decried the fact that while illiterate Han
Chinese and Mongolians could understand their respective languages when read
aloud, that was not the case for the Manchus, whose documents were recorded by
Mongolian scribes. Overriding the objections of two advisors named Erdeni and
G'ag'ai, he is credited with adapting the Mongolian script to Manchu. The
resulting script was known as tongki fuka akū hergen (Manchu: ᡨᠣᠩᡴᡳ ᡶᡠᡴᠠ ᠠᡴᡡ ᡥᡝᡵᡤᡝᠨ) — the "script without dots and circles".
Manchu (Manchu:ᠮᠠᠨᠵᡠ ᡤᡳᠰᡠᠨ, manju gisun) is a critically endangered East Asian Tungusic language
native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China. As the traditional native
language of the Manchus, it was one
of the official languages of the Qing dynasty (1636–1912) of China and in Inner Asia,
though today the vast majority of Manchus now speak only Mandarin Chinese. Now, several thousand can speak
Manchu as a second language through governmental primary education or free
classes for adults in classrooms or online.[4][5][6]
The Manchu language enjoys high
historical value for historians of China, especially for the Qing dynasty.
Manchu-language texts supply information that is unavailable in Chinese and
when both Manchu and Chinese versions of a given text exist they provide
controls for understanding the Chinese.[7]
Like most Siberian languages, Manchu is an agglutinative language
that demonstrates limited vowel harmony. It has
been demonstrated that it is derived mainly from the Jurchen language though there are many loan words from Mongolian and Chinese. Its script is vertically written and
taken from the Mongolian script
(which in turn derives from Aramaic via Uyghur and Sogdian). Although Manchu does not have the kind
of grammatical gender
found in European languages, some gendered words in Manchu are distinguished by
different stem vowels (vowel inflection), as in ama, "father"
and eme, "mother".