姜紹書と王越石--『韻石齋筆談』に見る明末清初の藝術市場と徽州商人の活動

Abstract

In the Early Qing period, works of art and antiques assembled by the collectors of the Jiangnan were relinquished by their owners and dispersed in great numbers. Those who sustained this were professional art dealers who were thoroughly versed in the trends in the art market. They were deeply involved in the formation of the collections of art collectors. The reason that these merchants could respond so swiftly in a period of turmoil during the transition from one dynasty to another was that commercialization of art and antiques had already developed by the end of the Ming, and subsequently the art market particularly in Jiangnan was a mature one. In this article, I deal chiefly with two contrasting individuals, Jiang Shaoshu 姜紹書 and Wang Yueshi 王越石. I examine the various issues accompanying the development of the "commercialization" of arts and antiques in late-Ming, early Qing period, such as the problems concerning the authenticity of the works for which there was a great demand, and the dynamism of commerce, its diversity and distribution on the part of the merchants. Jiang Shaoshu, who is famed as connoisseur of art and antiques, has left valuable testimony regarding the art and antique boom at the close of Ming and beginning of the Qing periods in a record of his personal experiences. These are contained in his work entitled Yunshizhai bitan 韻石齋筆談 and the Dingyaodingji 定窯鼎記 therein details the complete dispute over the authenticity of a white porcelain Dingyao ding (a Ding ware tripod vessel) and the fate of the people involved with it are vividly depicted. The protagonist of the Dingyaodingji was Wang Yueshi, a dealer in arts and antiques from Huizhou. He crisscrossed Jiangnan dealing in arts and antiques for more than twenty years, beginning at the close of the Wanli era. Due to his wealth of experience as a connoisseur, he equipped himself with an ability to appraise objects second to none in the literati elite of the age. Armed with this ability and his talent as a merchant, he was able to deal on equal terms with famed collectors and form a collection that rivaled their own. Behind this success was the solidarity of his family who operated in the same business, a surplus of funds, and the existence of widely exercised capacity for action and a network of information. On the other hand, for Jiang Shaoshu and other literati, it was necessary to have the opportunity to appreciate a great number of antiques and works of art in order to attain fame and acuity as elite connoisseurs. Moreover, in regard to the enormous number of works of art circulating in the art market, grasping the latest information on trends at the earliest possible moment, and becoming well versed in the prices of works were important preconditions. To this end, the merchants who played the role of go-betweens, introducing their many objects and much information to collectors in each locality, were indispensable to the literati. Additionally, from the merchants' point of view, receiving the assurance of value of works of art from the literati was of course of great benefit in doing business. Jiang Shaoshu maintained the pose of disdaining the commercialization of the fancy for the accoutrements of the studies of the literati as a step down the road to decadence and the philistines who frenzied after them, but literati and the merchants of arts and antiques had a mutually dependent, symbiotic relationship. In order to spend their lives indulging their tastes, the elite literati required the merchants of Huizhou as indispensable partners, and Wang Yueshi was the consummate example of such a person.