Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries


Visitors' Forum

Asian Art  Forums - Reply Message
Asian Art Forums

Message Listing by Date:
Message Index | Back | Post a New Message | Search | Private Mail | FAQ
Subject:translation chinese seal
Posted By: Alex Mon, Apr 08, 2024 IP: 2a02:a457:4029:1:60a

I would like to know the translation of this chinese seal.



Subject:Re: translation chinese seal
Posted By: I.Nagy Tue, Apr 09, 2024

八徴耄念之寶 
Treasure of concern over the eight phenomena of an octogenarian

This is a very clumsy copy of the engraving on a jade seal in the collection of the National Palace in Taipei.
The seal was a birthday gift for the Qianlong emperor's 80th birthday.

https://theme.npm.edu.tw/opendata/DigitImageSets.aspx?sNo=04011266&lang=2

With regards,
I.Nagy

Subject:Re: translation chinese seal
Posted By: Alex Wed, Apr 10, 2024

Hello Mr. Nagy, Thank you for the translation and i understand it is a bad copy. But the first chinese caraters you posted reads: The treasure of eight immortals. But you translated it as Treasure of concern over the eight phenomena of an octogenarian. And Mikeoz said the the first caracters read the celebration of the 80th birthday of the qianlong emperor.What is the correct tekst from top to bottom of the seal?



Subject:Re: translation chinese seal
Posted By: I.Nagy Fri, Apr 12, 2024

The most important thing to note is that modern computer technology is not yet capable of translating classical literary texts. Many people simply type the Chinese characters into the Google translator, which makes unintelligible mistranslations. For the time being, learning Chinese classical literary language by traditional methods is not yet avoidable.
First let's just take the characters on by one:
八 bā eight
徴 zhēng evidence,phenomena, proof, sign, potent (literary)
耄* mào   octogenarian, eighty years old
念 niàn  thought, idea, concern
之 zhī  posessive particle
寶 băo   treasure

* For characters with many stroke, their seal script forms are simplified, which is how our friend mikeoz misread 耄 as 年

I translate it:
Treasure of concern over the eight phenomena of an octogenarian



In the meantime I found the following translation on a sotheby's site: https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/fine-chinese-ceramics-and-works-of-art-n08872/lot.303.html
This is also not a proper translation, e.g. the "eight" is left out - which also affects the word order of the sentence.

With regards,
I.Nagy

Subject:Re: translation chinese seal
Posted By: Alex Fri, Apr 12, 2024

oke, thank you for the very good explanation.

Subject:Re: translation chinese seal
Posted By: Alex Wed, Apr 10, 2024

This seal has an estimate of 20.000-50.000 dollar and sold for 3.1 million dollars. It has the same seal script type as mine.



Post a Reply
Name:
Email:
Group: China & Japan
Subject:
Message:
Link URL:
Enter here the complete URL of any site, page or image you would like to show other visitors.
URL Title:
Enter here the title of the link you've given above. This will appear to the visitor. Eg., if you are linking another picture, enter "Another picture". The link will not appear without a title.
Image URL:
Enter here the URL of an image if it is already uploaded on the web. The image will appear with your posting. Do not post pictures which are not yours without permission from the copyright holder. It is the responsibility of each poster to make sure they have permission to use any photos they post.
Image: You may upload up to three images. If you would like to upload more images to this message please do so by replying to this same message.

Please make sure the file type is JPEG or GIF and the filename does not contain spaces.





Use the Browse button to find an image (jpg or gif) on a local drive on your computer to upload for including with your message. Do not upload images with file names containing spaces. Please do not upload files larger than 500 KB in size. Do not post pictures which are not yours without permission from the copyright holder. It is the responsibility of each poster to make sure they have permission to use any photos they post. Check the "email notification" box below if you would like to be notified of any responses to your message.
Check here for email notification.
Security Code: Security Image: please enter the text appears in this image.

Please type in the code you see in the image directly above this input box.

Subject:Re: translation chinese seal
Posted By: mikeoz Tue, Apr 09, 2024

While the first three characters 八徵年 were used to celebrate the 80th birthday of the QianLong Emperor, this seal looks far from Imperial quality and has most probably been made to deceive the unwiting tourist.


Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries |