Xiling bajia yinpu 西泠八家印譜

Xiling bajia yinpu 西泠八家印譜 is a seal album compiled during the late Qing period 清 (1644-1911) by Ding Ren 丁仁 (1878-1949), original name Renyou 仁友, courtesy name Fuzhi 輔之, style Helu 鶴廬, from Qiantang 錢塘 (today part of Hangzhou 杭州), Zhejiang. He was the a grand nephew of the famous collector and publisher Ding Bing 丁丙 (1832-1899). The family collection included numerous seals from local seal carvers. In 1904, Ding Ren founded the Xiling Seal Art Society (Xiling Yinshe 西泠印社), which still exists today. He also took part in the large series project Sibu beiyao 四部備要, published by the Zhonghua Shuju 中華書局. Ding published many catalogues of seal collections, like Yanlin yincun 硯林印存, Xiaopenglaige yincun 小蓬萊閣印存, Donghua'an yincun 冬華庵印存, Jiluo Jushi yincun 吉羅居士印存, Qiushizhai yincun 求是齋印存, Zhongyu Xianguan yincun 種榆仙館印存, Pingjishi yincun 萍寄室印存, Tielu yincun 鐵廬印存, Hangjun yinji 杭郡印輯, Helu yincun 鶴廬印存, Bei'an yinsheng 悲盦印剩, Qin-Han Dingshi yinxu 秦漢丁氏印緒 and – together with Gao Shifu 高時敷 (1886-1976), Ge Changying 葛昌楹 (1892—1963), and Yu Rencui 俞人萃 (1897-1942) – Dingchou queyu yincun 丁丑劫余印存.

The seal catalogue Xiling bajia yincun assembles in four volumes the seals of eight seal carvers from the province of Zhejiang, namely Ding Jing 丁敬 (1695-1765), Jiang Ren 蔣仁 (1743-1795), Huang Yi 黃易 (1744-1802), Xi Gang 奚岡 (1746-1803), Chen Yuzhong 陳豫鐘 (1762—1806), Chen Hongshou 陳鴻壽 (1768-1822), Zhao Zhichen 趙之琛 (1781-1852), and Qian Song 錢松 (1807-1860). They all belonged to the so-called Zhejiang School of seal carvers (Zhepai 浙派 or Zhezong 浙宗). The book presents the imprints of 503 seals. All imprints are enriched with transcriptions into regular script, and annotations to the background, including brief biographies of the artists. The catalogue was published in 1904. In the same year, another edition of the catalogue of 34 volumes appeared on the market, with the title Quantang Dingshi bajia yinpu 泉唐丁氏八家印譜, but showing 99 seal imprints less.