Gujin yinze 古今印則

Gujin yinze 古今印則 "Rules for seals past and present" is a seal album compiled during the late Ming period 明 (1368-1644) by Cheng Yanming 程彥明 (fl. 1617), also called Cheng Yuan 程遠, from Wuxi 無錫, Jiangsu. He was famous for his skills of reproducing ancient seals, along with other specialists of the time, Wen Peng 文彭, and He Zhen 何震.

The book of 4 juan and published in 1602 length presents reproductions of seal imprints through history. It shows reproductions of seals from the Qin 秦 (221-206 BCE) and Han 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE) periods owned by private collectors. The imprints are arranged according to hierarchical status, beginning with imperial seals from the Qin and Han periods, jade seals, seals of marquesses, private seals, and finally such created by contemporaries. Each page is imprinted with between 4 and 12 seals. All inscriptions, held in seal script, are translated into regular script, and annotated by Xiang Mengyuan 項夢原 (jinshi degree 1619).

Figure 1. Seal imprints from the Gujin yinze 古今印則

Small imperial seals (xiaoxi 小璽) inscribed in different styles of small seal script and birds-and-worms script. The catalogue presents (from right to left) imperial seals, bearing the names of certain palaces, then princely seals (wangyin 王印), and a seal of the princely consort of Liang (Liang wanghou xi 梁王后璽). From Guangming zhi men 光明之門.

The book has introductions and afterwords by famous scholars and collectors like Dong Qichang 董其昌 (1555-1636), Chen Jiru 陳繼儒 (1558-1639) or Wang Zhideng 王稚登 (1535-1612). The appendix of the book, Yinzhi 印旨, is a theory of seal carving.