ASIAN WORKS OF ART
Luopan Geomantic compass
$1,500.00
Luopan or Circular geomantic compass made of wood; back lacquered black, face lacquered gold with characters. Metal pointer in central cavity.
Chinese, Qing Dinasty (1644–1911)
140 mm diam. Collection Humbert II (Umberto II of Italy) Former King of Italy.
Provenance : Private Collection Geneva
A Chinese compass consisting of a wide thin disk of wood. At the centre of the compass is a small shallow bowl containing a dry-pivot needle that points south, with a line in the bowl indicating the north-south direction. Surrounding the bowl are 19 concentric rings, each divided into segments and marked with either symbols or Chinese characters. The first row is divided into eight segments each with one of the eight trigrams. The trigrams on this particular compass are arranged in the everted form of the Fu Hsi, one of the formulations of the eight trigrams. It has been argued that the everted form of the Fu Hsi trigram circle appeared on compasses used for Feng Shui, which would identify this compass as a geomancer's compass.
The fourth row is divided into 24 parts indicating the traditional azimuthal directions. Each segment contains one Chinese character, which in total consist of 20 cyclical characters and four gua (trigrams). These characters are arranged in the Zheng Zhen (lit. 'correct needle') position (i.e. the north-south direction). Beginning with the character in the South position and moving clockwise the characters are: Wu, Ding, Wei, Kun, Shen, Geng, You, Xin, Xu, Qian, Hai, Ren, Zi, Gui, Chou, Gen, Yin, Jia, Mao, Yi, Chen, Xun, Si and Bing. Although the characters do refer to directions, the characters in the North, South, East and West directions are not the characters or the literal translations for these directions, but are the traditional characters from the geomancer's compass. Wu, Kun, Shen, Xu, Qian, Ren, Zi, Gui, Yin, Jia, Yi, and Chen are red and all other characters are painted black. The red and black characters in this row represent the pure ying and pure yang. This row is found on all Chinese geomantic compasses. This is also the only row of characters found on Chinese mariner's compasses.
The fourth row is divided into 24 parts indicating the traditional azimuthal directions. Each segment contains one Chinese character, which in total consist of 20 cyclical characters and four gua (trigrams). These characters are arranged in the Zheng Zhen (lit. 'correct needle') position (i.e. the north-south direction). Beginning with the character in the South position and moving clockwise the characters are: Wu, Ding, Wei, Kun, Shen, Geng, You, Xin, Xu, Qian, Hai, Ren, Zi, Gui, Chou, Gen, Yin, Jia, Mao, Yi, Chen, Xun, Si and Bing. Although the characters do refer to directions, the characters in the North, South, East and West directions are not the characters or the literal translations for these directions, but are the traditional characters from the geomancer's compass. Wu, Kun, Shen, Xu, Qian, Ren, Zi, Gui, Yin, Jia, Yi, and Chen are red and all other characters are painted black. The red and black characters in this row represent the pure ying and pure yang. This row is found on all Chinese geomantic compasses. This is also the only row of characters found on Chinese mariner's compasses.