A Chinese zitan paperweight 

拍品描述

A Chinese zitan paperweight Qing dynasty, 18th/19th century Naturalistically carved as twin bamboo segments, incised with two lines of cursive script and two seals, 27.5cm long, fitted box. Provenance: Jizhen Zhai collection (label) Exhibited: Univ Museum exhibition, 68 (label). 清十八/十九世紀 紫檀竹節形鎮紙 銘文：成竹在胸，借書于手，雙竿比玉，物必有偶，封十八姨，斂威不吼。□苑洺勛勉，□□世守。蓉裳銘于隨園。 鈐印：宏農楊氏 來源：Jizhen Zhai舊藏（標簽）。 展覽：Univ博物館展覽，第68號（標籤）。 Yang Fangcan (1754 – 1816), courtesy name Caishu, sobriquet Rongshang, was a native of Jinkui (present-day Wuxi), Jiangsu Province, and a Qing dynasty literary figure. He was selected as a pibao (tribute student) in the forty-second year of the Qianlong reign and subsequently entered official service. He held posts including magistrate of Fuxiang County in Gansu, prefect of Lingzhou and Pingliang Prefecture, and later served as assistant director in the Ministry of Revenue (Hubu Yuanwailang). He also participated in the compilation of the Huidian and the Sichuan Tongzhi. After entering officialdom, Yang was posted to Gansu, where he is recorded to have personally dispersed a grain-rioting crowd and established relief porridge stations during famine. He also oversaw the restoration of the tomb of Jiang Wei and the Du Fu Thatched Cottage. In middle age, due to the rule of kinship avoidance, he was transferred to a central government post in the capital. In his later years, he served as a lecturer at several academies. He was particularly accomplished in parallel prose (pianwen). His works include Zhenshuizhai Gao and Furong Shanguan Shici Gao. He maintained associations with Yuan Mei, and the scholar Lu Jilu praised his poetry as “more refined and well-structured than that of Mei Cun”. His collected writings, Yang Fangcan Ji, were later compiled and published by later scholars. Suiyuan (Sui Garden), of which only ruins now remain, was one of the three great classical gardens of the Jiangnan region during the Qing dynasty. Its history can be traced back to the late Ming period, when it was known as Jiao Garden, associated with Wu Yingqi. During the Kangxi reign, it became part of the garden estate of the Cao family, who served as Imperial Silk Weavers in Jiangning. After the Cao family’s confiscation of property in the Yongzheng reign, the garden passed into the possession of Sui Hede. In the thirteenth year of the Qianlong reign (1748), it was purchased by Yuan Mei, who renamed it “Suiyuan”.Yuan Mei recorded in Suiyuan Shihua Biyi, chapter seven, an anecdote concerning Yang Fangcan’s appropriation of literary material: “Hu Zhiwei of Shanyin was a prodigious talent of extraordinary brilliance... I initially copied thirty pieces of his parallel prose, which were later appropriated by Yang Rongshang (Yang Fangcan).” 楊芳燦（一七五四 - 一八一六），字才叔，號蓉裳，江蘇金匱（今屬無錫）人，清代文學家。乾隆四十二年拔貢，歷任甘肅伏羌知縣、靈州知州、平涼府知府，官至戶部員外郎，參與纂修《會典》《四川通志》。楊芳燦四十二年入仕後赴甘肅任職，曾單騎勸散奪米饑民，並設粥廠賑災，主持修繕姜維墓、杜甫草堂。中年因親屬迴避調任京官，晚年主講多家書院。其駢文成就尤為突出。著有《真率齋稿》《芙蓉山館詩詞稿》等，與袁枚交遊，陸繼輅評其詩「工穩過於梅村」。《楊芳燦集》由後世學者整理刊行。 隨園，現僅存遺址，為清代江南三大名園之一。隨園的歷史可追溯至明末吳應箕焦園，清康熙時期成為江寧織造曹寅家族園林的一部分。雍正年間曹家被抄沒後歸隋赫德所有，乾隆十三年（1748年）袁枚購得並更名為「隨園」。袁枚曾在《隨園詩話補疑》卷七，曾載一則楊芳燦見文欣喜遂據爲己有的軼事：「山陰胡稚威天游，曠代奇才.....余初抄其駢體文三十篇，為楊蓉裳篡取去」。

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