JADE. FROM EMPERORS TO ART DÉCO (extrait)

This catalogue is published to accompany the exhibition Jade, from Emperors to Art Deco, held at the Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet in Paris, from 19 October 2016 to 16 January 2017.

The exhibition has been organized with the support of the Taipei Representative Office in France

And with exceptional loans of masterpieces from the collections of the National Palace Museum, Taipei

It was made possible thanks to the generosity of the exhibition’s principal patron, the Total Corporate Foundation

And the sponsorship of Eva Air

The English version of the catalogue was made possible thanks to the initiative of Maison Cartier. © Somogy Editions d’art, Paris, 2016 © Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, Paris 2016 ISBN Somogy Editions d’art: 978-2-7572-1177-9 ISBN Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet: 979-10-90262-36-2 Registration of copyright: October 2016 Printed in the European Union

Exhibition curators

Exhibition

Curator in charge Sophie Makariou, President, Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet (MNAAG)

Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet Daniel Soulié, Director for cultural and public engagement Katia Mollet, Head of Exhibitions Mikael Gomes, Lighting designer Pauline Roy, Head of Visuals and Signage Caroline Rousseau, Signage Assistant Maïté Vicedo, Proofreader Yukiko Kamijima-Olry, Head of Sponsorship and International Partnerships Adil Boulghallat, Valériane Guillaud, Exhibition managers

Curators Marie-Catherine Rey, Curator in charge, Chinese Collections, MNAAG Huei-chung Tsao, Associate researcher, Chinese Collections, MNAAG

With the collaboration of Claire Déléry, Curator, Chinese collections, MNAAG Jiehua Huang, trainee, Chinese collections, MNAAG Scientific Advisors Teng Shu-p’ing, Honorary Director, Department of Antiquities, National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan Chang Li-tuan, Curator, Department of Antiquities, National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan

Exhibition design [MAW] – Philippe Maffre; Marion Rivolier

Catalogue Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet Anne Leclercq, Head of Publications Claire Vidal, Publications assistant Dominique Fayolle-Reninger, Documentation assistant Somogy Editions d’art Nicolas Neumann, Editorial director Stéphanie Méséguer, Senior editor Sarah Houssin-Dreyfuss, Managing editor Nelly Riedel, Designer Béatrice Bourgerie, Mélanie Le Gros, Production Barbara Mellor, Ann Cremin and Sharon Grevet, translation from French into English Kate Mayne, English editing

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FROM EMPERORS TO ART DECO

Under the direction of Huei-chung Tsao

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Acknowledgements The Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet and the exhibition curators would like to express their sincere gratitude to the directors of the following museums and institutions for their generous loans: National Palace Museum, Taipei Lin Jeng-yi, Director Musée national du château de Fontainebleau Jean-François Hebert, President Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris Laurence Engel, President Cartier Cyrille Vigneron, President & CEO Pierre Rainero, Image, Style and Heritage Director Pascale Lepeu, Curator of the Cartier Collection La Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques/ FNAGP, Paris Laurence Maynier, Director Institut de France, Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris Jean-Pierre Babelon, Member of the Institut, President of the Fondation Jacquemart-André Musée d’art et d’histoire, Saint-Denis Sylvie Gonzalez, Director Musées des Arts décoratifs, Paris Olivier Gabet, Director Musée Cernuschi, Musée des Arts de l’Asie de la Ville de Paris Eric Lefebvre, Director Musée d’Histoire et d’Archéologie, Vannes Christophe Le Pennec, Deputy Curator, in charge of the History and Archaeology Collections Musée du Louvre, Paris Jean-Luc Martinez, President Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris Bruno David, President Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris Stéphane Martin, President Van Cleef & Arpels Nicolas Bos, President

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We also express our profound gratitude to those collectors who wish to remain anonymous and who also helped to make this exhibition possible.

The curators also owe a great debt of thanks to the individuals and institutions who were so generous in the welcome they offered us, and who, through their unflagging support and confidence, helped ensure this exhibition’s fruitful elaboration: Taiwan: Cheng Li-chun, Minister for Culture Bureau Français, Taipei: Benoît Guidée, Director; Nicolas Bauquet, Advisor for Cultural Cooperation and Outreach and Danielle Tai-lan Lien, Cultural Attaché.

Academia Sinica, Taipei: Chen Kwang-tzuu, Institute of History and Philology and Lin Yu-yun, Museum of the Institute of History and Philology National Palace Museum, Taipei: Ho Chuan-hsing, Deputy Director; Lisette Lou, Assistant to the Director, in charge of International Affairs; Chou Kung-shin, Fung Ming-chu and Shih Shou-chien, former Directors; Yu Peichin, Head of the Department of Antiquities; Wu Hsiao-yun and Chen Hui-hsia, Curators, Department of Antiquities; Yeh Nai-chieh, assistant to Chang Li-tuan, Curator, Department of Antiquities; Chen Tung-ho, Research scientist, Department of Registration and Conservation; Tsai Mei-fen, former Head of the Department of Antiquities; Yang Meili, former Curator, Department of Antiquities.

France: Taipei Representative Office in France: Zhang Ming-zhong, Representative Centre culturel de Taïwan à Paris: Tsai Hsiao-ying, Director, Huang Yi-Chih, Project manager Service des Musées de France: Vincent Lefèvre, Deputy Director of collections.

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris: Nathalie Monnet, Chief Curator, Department of Manuscripts Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des musées de France, Paris: Michel Menu, Head of Research Department and Thomas Calligaro, Research officer Maison Cartier: Renée Frank, Exhibition projects Director; Violette Petit, Archives Manager; Nadia Cretignier; Hélène Godard; Caroline Kranz; Gaëlle Naegellen; Cléo Vallélian; Fabianne Vivier Musée Cernuschi, Paris: Hélène Chollet, Chinese documentary researcher Château de Fontainebleau: Vincent Droguet, Director of Heritage and collections; Patricia Kalensky, Manager of the Centre of scientific resources Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris: Béatrice Quette, Asian collections Musée du Louvre, Paris: Philippe Malgouyres, Chief Curator,

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Department of Objets d’art; Rosène Declementi, Documentary researcher; Gwenaëlle Fellinger, Curator and Annabelle Collinet, Scientific officer, Department of Islamic Arts Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris: François Farges, Professor Van Cleef & Arpels: Catherine Cariou, Director of Heritage Alain Thote, Director of Studies at EPHE and l’IHEC Philippe Colomban, Research Director, UMR7075 (CNRS/Université P&M Curie – Paris 6).

China: State Department for Cultural Heritage: Wen Dayan, Director of International Affairs Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: Zhu Naicheng and Xin Aigang Liaoning Provincial Institute of Archaeology: Guo Dashun, Honorary Director Liangzhu Museum: Jiang Weidong, Director The Palace Museum, Beijing: Guo Fuxiang, Curator Zhejiang Provincial Museum: Wang Yifeng, Curator

Switzerland: Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Art, Monique Crick, Director.

The curators also owe special thanks to: Guillaume Cerrutti (Christie’s); Amin Jaffer (Christie’s); Emmanuel Coquery, Director of Heritage, Chanel; as well as to Renée Frank, Cartier, for her friendly attention and enthusiastic support throughout this project.

Finally, the curators would like to thank all departments of the Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet for their support for this exhibition, and especially: Pierre Baptiste, Hélène Bayou, Cécile Becker, Etienne Busson, Cristina Cramerotti, Vincent Delacour, Bruno Frizon, Michèle Galdemar, Pauline Janvier, Thierry Jopeck, Hubert Laot, Hélène Lefèvre, Gérard Maïore, Richard Masingarbe, Michel Maucuer, Rayane Meziani, Muriel Mussard, Amina Okada, Sandrine Olivier, Véronique Prost, Aurélie Samuel, Riadh Sassi, Eric Thomas, Catherine Vasovic, Anne-Véronique Voisin, Valérie Zaleski and the staff of Anne Samson Communications.

Shanghai Museum: Zhang Wei, Curator.

Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Institute of Chinese Studies, Art Museum: Xu Xiaodong, Curator.

United States of America: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco: He Li, Curator Freer & Sackler Galleries of Art, Washington, D.C.: Janet G. Douglas, Head of Technical Studies, Museum Conservation Institute Harvard Art Museums, Arthur Sackler Museum, Cambridge: Robert Mowry, Honorary Curator Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Hiromi Kinoshita, former Curator Art Institute of Chicago: Elinor Pearlstein, Curator Metropolitan Museum, New York: Ernst Grube (1932-2011), scholar, Honorary Director of the Department of Islamic Art. United Kingdom: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: James C.S. Lin, Senior assistant Keeper British Museum, London: Carol Michaelson, Keeper, Department of Asia Muban Educational Trust, London: Christer von der Burg.

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The Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet (MNAAG) is a great European centre for the study and conservation of the civilizations of Asia. For this reason, in 2012 the National Palace Museum of Taipei joined forces with the Musée Guimet in mounting an ambitious exhibition that would bring together not only jades drawn from the collections of both institutions, but also pieces from eleven other French museums and from private collections. The resulting exhibition has been shaped around the Chinese imperial collections, in order to present the culture of jade in Asia in all its splendour and in the context of its historical significance, and to explore its influence on the decorative arts of the West.

The National Palace Museum possesses the world’s largest collection of Chinese art, and it was therefore clear to the Musée Guimet that many of the pieces in the exhibition would come from our collections. The exhibition curators from both museums have enjoyed fruitful exchanges over a number of years, and it was against this background of cooperation that the National Palace Museum selected ninety-six pieces of the very greatest importance. These include, notably, the inlay plaques forming the jade kui casket that accompanied the jade slips engraved with a ritual shan prayer, used by the Zhenzong emperor (Northern Song dynasty); the Song or Liao dynasty dish decorated with an openwork dragon motif; and the miniature cabinet of curiosities that was so cherished by the Qianlong emperor. We believe that the great variety of objects on display – representing the rituals, artistic tastes, daily life and many other aspects of ancient Chinese culture – contributes greatly to the outstanding quality and impact of this exhibition.

This partnership between the National Palace Museum and the Musée Guimet goes back to 1998, when the two museums organized an exhibition at the Grand Palais entitled Trésors du Musée national du Palais, Taipei. Mémoire d’Empire. This joint venture was followed by loans from the National Palace Museum to three further exhibitions: Les Très Riches Heures de la cour de Chine (1662-1796) (Musée Guimet, 2006), La Voie du Tao, un autre chemin de l’ être (Grand Palais, 2010) and Le Thé – Histoires d’une boisson millénaire (Musée Guimet, 2012). In 2011, meanwhile, the Musée Guimet contributed exhibits to our exhibition entitled L’Empereur Kangxi et Louis XIV le Roi-Soleil. Rencontres franco-chinoises dans l’art et la culture. It is as a continuation of these joint ventures that the National Palace Museum therefore attaches the greatest importance to this latest collaboration, and is delighted to join its thirteen fellow institutions in mounting the exhibition Jade, from Emperors to Art Deco. It is our hope that the numerous pieces presented here will reveal to western art lovers the culture of jade in a new light.

In conclusion, in the name of the National Palace Museum I would like to wish this exceptional event the great success that it deserves. I would also like to offer my sincere thanks to the staff of the Musée Guimet and the National Palace Museum for their involvement, as well as to our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, our Ministry of Culture, the Taipei Representative Office in France, and especially the Bureau Français in Taipei, for their help and support in the organization of this joint Franco-Taiwanese exhibition. Lastly, I would like to pay tribute to the friendship that has united our two museums for so many years: long may it continue to offer fruitful conditions for an ever closer and wider-ranging collaboration.

LIN JENG -Y I Director of the National Palace Museum, Taipei

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Collections that brim with history…

Bringing together collections as rich in history as those displayed in the exhibition Jade, from Emperors to Art Deco is an occasion of rare emotion. From earliest times, jade has enthralled people across the continents of Europe and Asia. From the 6th to the 4th millennia BC, Neolithic cultures carved and polished jade to make large axes and flat, circular discs, later to be found in constellations of archaeological sites, scattered from the steppes of Mongolia all the way to the westernmost point of Europe, on French soil. Intriguingly, disparate populations scattered over such vast geographical expanses, without being in direct contact, have similarly attributed ritualistic properties to this stone and used it in funerary rites to honour high-status members of their communities. Jade objects loaned by the museum in Vannes (Brittany), displayed here alongside Chinese axes and discs, recall this subtle and moving link. And what could André Breton have associated with jade? He placed two jade axes decorated with toads in the Surrealist still life that was his desk in his studio on rue Fontaine in Paris.

The magnificent archaic jade pieces gifted to the Musée Guimet by Dr Gieseler in 1932 form one of the high points of the exhibition, together with the jades loaned by the Musée Cernuschi, ranging from the late Neolithic period to the beginnings of China’s written history. Later, emperors and kings alike would come to be spellbound by a stone that is not precious. It cannot be faceted because of its structure, nor does it have the translucence or the quality of light diffraction that is so fascinating in cut diamonds and other cut precious stones. From earliest antiquity to the finest hours of the court of the Qing emperors, including most notably Yongzheng (r. 1723-1735) and Qianlong (r. 1736-1795), jade was endowed with an extraordinary importance in China; how could it be that jade, like celadon, also came to mesmerize the Medicis, Cardinal Mazarin, French kings, Mughal padishahs, Ottoman sultans, Persian Safavid shahs and French aristocrats, and later American high society as well? And what was it that inspired the Empress Eugénie’s special passion for the jade pieces that formed such a considerable part of her Chinese museum?

Could it be the paradoxical humanism that this stone exudes? Like Confucius, anyone who handles it is struck by its smoothness, its soft, almost warm touch, so unlike the coldness we usually associate with stones, and especially with precious stones. At the exhibition’s entrance, visitors may have this experience first-hand by touching blocks of jade laid out for that purpose. Jade is a stone that radiates modesty.

Its intriguing tale can only be told thanks to the loans that have made this exhibition possible. First and foremost among these is the outstanding contribution of the National Palace Museum of Taipei, consisting of exceptional masterpieces that are steeped in history; I deeply and sincerely thank them. Following close behind, we owe an immense debt of gratitude to our colleagues Jean-François Hébert and Vincent Droguet from Empress Eugénie’s Chinese museum at the Musée national du Château de Fontainebleau. Between them, and despite the vicissitudes of history, these two august establishments have in fact made it possible for us to bring together some of the most magnificent jades from the Chinese imperial collections for the first time since 1860.

Echoes of the passion aroused by jade among the royal families and noble dynasties of Europe from the seventeenth century are embodied in loans from great Parisian institutions including the Muséum national d’Histoire, the Louvre, the Musée Jacquemart-André, the Musée des Arts décoratifs and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

At the other chronological extremity of its history, jade – which carries within it a history of the earth, waiting to be discovered, that can only be revealed through a long and painstaking process of carving and polishing – has exercised a fascination over Western artists of the twentieth century, as though it were a messenger from a remote and distant past.

Particular mention must also be made of the enthusiastic support of Cartier for this project, and of the extreme generosity of the experts on its staff, for without their contribution we would not have been able to contemplate a selection of masterpieces of their artistry that are universal in their beauty, thus perpetuating the long history of jade, and of the charm that it continues to exert over us.

In particular I wish to offer my sincere thanks to the Total Corporate Foundation for its longstanding support of projects such as this one, that seek to share and deepen the understanding of civilization, regardless of its place of origin in the world. I would like also to express my gratitude to Eva Air for allowing the project to take wing.

SOPHIE M A K A RIOU President, Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet

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Culture and the arts are ways of celebrating the beauty that serves to connect people and generations, and that helps to foster social harmony. For a number of years, the Total Foundation and the Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet have worked together to showcase world cultures and to present ambitious exhibitions, including Kazakhstan, hommes, bêtes et dieux de la steppe; Angkor, naissance d’un mythe – Louis Delaporte et le Cambodge; Clemenceau, le Tigre et l’Asie; and more recently Splendeurs des Han, essor de l’empire Céleste.

Through its support of Jade, from Emperors to Art Deco, the Total Foundation once more sets out to celebrate the wealth and beauty of China’s ancestral culture, which are still so little known. Yet the story of the gathering and carving of jade stretches back over ten thousand years, in an uninterrupted tradition that has occupied a position of quintessential importance in the civilization of China throughout its long history. We may be able to put a value on gold, but – according to a Chinese saying – the value of jade cannot be calculated, and in the nineteenth and early twentieth century its fascination spread to include artists, designers and collectors in the West.

In celebrating Chinese culture, the Total Foundation has also fallen under the spell of this fascinating stone, and it invites visitors and readers to immerse themselves in the world of jade, its delicate beauty, its potent symbolism, and its many other legendary qualities.

Total Corporate Foundation

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Contributors Maël Bellec (M. B.) Curator, Chinese archaeology and graphic arts, Musée Cernuschi, Musée des Arts de l’Asie de la Ville de Paris

Sophie Makariou (S. M.) Curator in charge, President, Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet

Adrien Bossard Curator, Director, Musée archéologique de l’Oise

Nathalie Monnet (N. M.) Chief curator, Dunhuang manuscripts and Chinese collections, Department of Manuscripts, Bibliothèque nationale de France

Chang Li-tuan (C. L.-T.) Curator, Departement of Antiquities, National Palace Museum, Taipei Hélène Chollet (H. C.) Chinese documentary researcher, Musée Cernuschi, Musée des Arts de l’Asie de la Ville de Paris Bruno David President, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle Vincent Droguet Curator in charge, Director of Heritage and Collections, Château de Fontainebleau François Farges Professor, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle

Marie-Catherine Rey (M.-C. R.) Curator in charge, Chinese collections, Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet Alain Thote Director of studies at EPHE (Chinese pre-imperial art and archaeology), Director of the Institut des hautes études chinoises (IHEC) Huei-chung Tsao (H.-C. T.) Associate researcher, Chinese collections, Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet Translation of Chinese texts into French: Marie-Paule Chamayou

Pascale Lepeu (P. L.) Curator of the Cartier Collection

Note to readers ‘Jade’ is a generic term that also includes nephrite.

The transcription of Arabic and Persian has been simplified, following the custom in non-specialist works. Long vowels, emphatic consonants, glottal stops and the guttural ayn are not indicated.

Chinese names are transcribed according to the pinyin system, the most widely used internationally for transcribing Mandarin Chinese into the Latin alphabet. The basic principles of this complex system are given below (further details may be found on the BBC guide to pinyin: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/ chinese/real _ chinese/mini _ guides/pinyin/pinyin _ consonants.shtml):

Other abbreviations: ‘r.’ for ‘reign’ ‘bibl.’ for ‘bibliography’ ‘inv.’ for ‘inventory’ ‘h.’ for ‘height’ ‘l.’ for ‘length’ ‘w.’ for ‘width’ ‘d.’ for ‘depth’ ‘t.’ for ‘thickness’ ‘diam.’ for ‘diameter’

f, k, l, m, n, p, s, t, w and y are similar to their equivalents in English b = p (as in ‘spare’) d = t (as in ‘stand’) z = ds (as in ‘lads’) zh = j (as in ‘jump’, but with the tongue further back) j = j (as in ‘joke’, but with the tongue further forward g = g (as in ‘girl’) sh = sh (as in ‘ship’) x = between s and sh h = h (as in ‘him’) or ch (as in ‘loch’) c = ts (as in ‘tents’) ch = ch (as in ‘chair’, but with the tongue further back) q = ch (as in ‘chair’, but with the tongue further forward) r = r (as in ‘rough’, but with the tongue curled upwards)

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Page 12: Detail of cat. 201

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Contents 14

Jade: Evolution of a Definition MARIE-CATHERINE REY

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From Jade to Jades: a Naturalist Saga, between the Orient and the Occident FRANÇOIS FARGES AND BRUNO DAVID

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The Work of Jade Carving MARIE-CATHERINE REY

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The Jades from the Neolithic Period: Cultures, Forms and Functions ALAIN THOTE

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Jades, from the Bronze Age to the Han ALAIN THOTE

76

Animal Forms MARIE-CATHERINE REY

86

The Continuity of Styles throughout the Ages MARIE-CATHERINE REY

108

The Taste of Chinese Literati HUEI-CHUNG TSAO

134

Jade, Ritual and Power ADRIEN BOSSARD

148

The Collector-Emperors (17th and 18 th Centuries) MARIE-CATHERINE REY

156

The Taste of Emperor Qianlong Confronting the ‘Debacle of Jade’ CHANG LI-TUAN

196

‘Inscribed in Jade for Eternity’ NATHALIE MONNET

206

Jades from China and Elsewhere.

Artistic Interactions between the Chinese Empire and the Islamic World in the 14th -18 th Centuries SOPHIE MAK ARIOU

228

From the Summer Palace to the Palace of Fontainebleau.

The Chinese Museum of Empress Eugénie and its Collections VINCENT DROGUET

248

From the Chinese Style to Art Deco MARIE-CATHERINE REY

ANNEXES

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276

Jade in the Chinese world from the Neolithic period (map)

278

The Islamic world and the Chinese world (map)

280

The principal Neolithic jade cultures and a chronology of China to 1911

281

Bibliography

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‘The gentlemen of Antiquity found the likeness of all excellent qualities in jade. Warm, smooth and glossy, it appeared to them like benevolence; fine, compact and strong, like intelligence; […] when struck, yielding a note, clear and prolonged, yet terminating abruptly, like music; its flaws not concealing its beauty, nor its beauty concealing its flaws, like loyalty; with an internal radiance issuing from it on every side, like good faith; its radiance rising as a rainbow, like heaven; its spirit appearing in the mountains and streams, like earth; plaques and half-plaques are fashioned from it, which the envoys of the princes offer as sole gifts (without the addition of other offerings) standing out, conspicuous in the symbols of rank, like virtue; esteemed by all under the sky, like the path of truth and duty.’

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Jade: Evolution of a Definition M A R I E- C AT H ER I N E R E Y

‘Gold has a price, but jade is priceless.’1 The history of Chinese jade is first of all the story of a whole group of ‘beautiful stones,’2 which also included other minerals chosen for their colour or brilliance, such as turquoise and rock crystal. More than with any other raw material, therefore, in order to understand the position occupied by jade in Chinese culture, we need to draw a clear distinction between the scientific approach – in this case that of chemists and mineralogists – and its appreciation by connoisseurs and collectors. For science arrived on the scene only after a long history that began in antiquity with a fascination for these ‘beautiful stones’, which would only gradually come to be distinguished from nephrite or

Cat. 1.

Water bowl in the form of a pomegranate and a lotus China, Qing dynasty, 18 th -19 th century Carnelian h. 6 cm, l. 9 cm (vase) h. 7 cm, l. 12 cm (stand) Musée national du château de Fontainebleau, F 1649 C 1 and F 1649 C 2

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Cat. 2.

Miniature mountain (shanzi) with a deer and two figures China, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-1795) Jade h. 13,3 cm, w. 10 cm, t. 4 cm Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, Paris, MG 353

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From Jade to Jades A NATURALIST SAGA, BETWEEN THE ORIENT AND THE OCCIDENT

FR A N ÇO I S FA RG ES A N D B RU N O DAV I D Cat. 4.

Double zun vase decorated with dragons and phoenix China, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-1795) Jade, wood (stand) h. 10.9 cm, l. 12 cm, d. 5.7 cm National Palace Museum, Taipei, inv. Guyu 2102 1. Cf. Pliny the Elder, 1848.

2. I.e. 宝 in Japanese and 보 in Korean, attached to 玉 (yu).

3. Lemery, 1697.

4. Nephritic colic or nephritis.

5. Paris, MNHN, mineralogy, inv. A.53: nephritic jade described as ‘raw. Taken from a rolled piece, from China.’

6. Cat. 6. Attributed to the Siamese embassy of 1686 to King Louis XIV in Versailles (Schubnel and Chiappero,1998). Balthazar Sage Collection, Hôtel de la Monnaie.

Bequeathed at the death of Sage to the Muséum.

7. Inscribed with the mention ‘considerable value, over 1.200 fr.’ having been seized at the home of Charles Paul Jean Baptiste de Bourgevin Vialart de Moligny, Earl of SaintMorys (1743-1795), also known as ‘the Collector,’ who had emigrated from France in 1791.

8. Cf. Castelluccio, 2016.

9. MNHN, inv. A.47. Made in Augsburg and acquired by Dalencé for Louis XIV. No. 83 in the Inventory of the French Crown Jewels (Inventaire des diamants de la Couronne), 1791. Received on the 24 floreal year VIII (14 May, 1800) from the Muséum central des arts.

Cf. Alcouffe, 2001, p. 527 (no. 276).

10. Sold by Louis Alvarez to Louis XIV on January 12, 1683. No. 89 in the Inventory of the French Crown Jewels, 1791. Received on the 24 floréal year VIII (14 May 1800), from the Muséum central des arts. Cf. Alcouffe, 2001, pp. 356-357 (no. 175).

11. Possibly a serpentinic jadeite or an eclogite. Cf. Saussure, 1779-1796.

12. Aka ‘axe stone of the Amazons.’

Cf. Haüy, 1822.

Ever since prehistoric times, jade has been a natural mineral substance that was granted the status of a gem. It has indeed been sought after, harvested and fashioned to manufacture tools, weapons, adornments, as instruments or symbols of power that were used by numerous civilizations that prospected it avidly. Omnipresent in Asia, fundamental in Pre-Columbian America, unavoidable for the Maoris, a key for exchange in Europe during the Neolithic era, jade is one of those ‘universal’ geo-materials – like gold, pearls or rock crystal – that has contributed to the evolution of numerous cultures.

Equally fascinating, the natural history of ‘jade’ also reflects the evolution of the natural sciences.

From ancient times to the King’s Cabinet of Natural History In the Roman world, gems of a similar appearance were categorised under similar names.1 Differences between the deposits must therefore explain the diversity of other characteristics, such as nuances of colour, or variations in hardness, density or brilliance. Thus, numerous translucent stones with an ornamental polish were called ‘jade,’ all the more since in China and in Japan 玉 (yu, ‘jade’) is one of the oldest known sinograms, denoting ‘gem, beautiful, treasure, and precious.’2 From the end of the Renaissance, cabinets of curiosities and/or medicine were developed in the West, including the French Royal Apothecary (Droguier royal), founded in Paris in 1626. The pharmacopeia included the lapis nephriticus of the Ancients – the apothecaries’ ‘nephritic stone,’3 Frenchified under the name nephrite which was also the name of the eponymous pains 4 that this gem was supposedly able to cure.

During the 18 th century, the Droguier royal became the Cabinet du Roi, i.e. the King’s Cabinet of Natural History: this cabinet of curiosities was enhanced with, among others, raw jades5 (cat. 5a), as well as numerous ‘chinoiseries,’ comparable to the cup in ‘mutton fat’ (cat. 175), a whitish variety of jade, that was much sought after at the time.6 Following the revolutionary seizures, circa 1794, the Cabinet was renamed National Museum of Natural History (Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle – MNHN) and received a large spoon in nephrite7 (cat. 169). In 1800, two major objects in jade acquired by King Louis XIV of France were placed in the Muséum8: the cup known as ‘à la Sirène’ 9 and the timouride ‘carafe’10 (cat. 177). At the time naturalists described three varieties of jade: ‘oriental’ or ‘nephritic,’ ‘of Saussure’ 11 and ‘axinian.’12 Surprisingly, no mention of jadeite or even of ‘imperial’ jade was made, although it had become very much prized in China.13 It was during that lapse of time, c. 1797, that the mineralogist René-Just Haüy (1743-1822) first defined the concept of a mineral species that is still current today.14 The aesthetic characteristics were replaced by chemical and crystallographic descriptions. On that scientific basis he also defined two families

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The work of Jade Carving M A R I E- C AT H ER I N E R E Y

1. Used by potters as early as the Neolithic period (4000-3000 BC?), the treadle wheel was almost certainly appropriated by jade carvers for their own purposes.

2. In the eighteenth century, an important jade artefact could still take a skilled craftsman ten years to carve.

The beauty of jade is never a ‘given’ quality, whether it is in the nuances of its colours, its transparency or its opacity. All the elements that together comprise this beauty are revealed through the painstaking process of polishing, carried out by a jade carver whose finely attuned eye and fingers assess how best to reveal and unfold the qualities of the piece of stone that he is holding in his hands. Playing on the nuances of its colours and veins, he will imagine the translucence or even the sonority with which he will be able to endow the finished piece. Guided by the raw material’s qualities, he will sketch out his design on it, fixing its contours and details in high and low relief, making preparations that in some respects resemble those made by a sculptor of stone.

While the materials from which his tools are made – stone, metal, wood and leather – clearly evolved between the Neolithic period and the modern era, the principles of their use and the successive stages of the work remain unchanged.

An abrasive made from sand and water is used at the cutting stage; perforations are made, patiently and repetitively, using a range of drills of varying diameters, and gouges and burins are used to make incised decorations. Early tools used to perforate, polish and grind were probably equipped with metal straps that enhanced the jade worker’s grip on the stone and aided his movements. The development of the treadle wheel1 would facilitate – albeit only to a limited extent – work that remained lengthy and laborious despite technical advances.2 The jade carver knows how to draw inspiration from the different qualities of a piece of jade stone, and how to exploit them in deciding upon the form his sculpture will take: two different colours juxtaposed may be used to highlight the drama of a struggle between two animals, for instance (cat. 12), or shades of rust may lend themselves to the subtleties of a mountain landscape in autumn (cat. 13). At the same time, we also know that, since ancient times, a variety of techniques have been used to alter the colours of jade, such as burying it in the earth for varying lengths of time, according to the desired degree of oxidation. And the reasons for the different colours in a piece of jade, whether natural or artificial, are not always easy to determine. More recently, controlled exposure to heat could be used to create patches of yellow veering towards light brown – known in Chinese as ‘burnt skin,’3 or kaopizi – in a practice specifically intended to mimic the patina of antique jade. We know that the Qianlong emperor admired the beauty of a cup with a handle in the shape of a dragon splashed with yellow, assuming it to be of ancient workmanship (cat.

151), until a craftsman in the imperial workshops called Yao Zongren revealed that his grandfather had made it.4

3. Lin C.-H., 2006, p. 35.

4. See cat. 151, p. 186.

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Fig. 1 Sawing a rough block of jade China, 1910-1933 Gelatin silver negative on glass plate h. 9 cm, w. 12 cm (glass plate) C. T. Loo donation, Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris, inv. PV0023377

Fig. 2 and 3 Openwork of a block of jade and doing openwork decoration Illustrations of the work of jade (Yuzuo tu) 1985, reproduced by Zhou Yi-hong after an original illustration by Li Chengyuan (1906)

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The Jades from the Neolithic Period C U LT U R E S , F O R M S A N D F U N C T I O N S A L A I N T H OT E Cat. 15.

Bi disc China, Neolithic period, Liangzhu culture (c. 3200-2200 BC) Jade diam. 14 cm, d. 1,7 cm G. Gieseler donation, 1932, Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, Paris, MG 18373

1. Leroi-Gourhan, 1971, pp. 47 and following.

2. Rawson, 1995, pp. 13-20. For an overall look at the jades of Chinese Antiquity, cf. Hayashi, 1991.

3. Xu L., 2011.

Before fully mastering the art of metallurgy, and up until the Warring States period (475-221 BC), the inhabitants of the various regions comprising the Eastern part of contemporary China – from Liaoning to Guangxi and from Sichuan to the sea – used stone as a primary material for manufacturing a great number of tools (axes, choppers, chisels, knives, adzes) and everyday items. They were produced with a percussive technique.1 In that sense, these peoples did not distinguish themselves from the inhabitants of other parts of the world. Very early on, however, among the various minerals present in China, they exploited the resources of an exceptional stone called jade (yu 玉), which has properties that are far superior to all other stones commonly used. Jade has a high coefficient of hardness, between 5,5 and 6 on the Mohs scale, which consists of ten degrees that range from 1 for talc to 10 for diamond. Jade is therefore very difficult to fashion, as is evident from an oft-demonstrated fact: a steel point cannot scratch its surface. The dominant colour of jade varies according to the place of its extraction, ranging between milky white and green, or blue-green, or between brown and yellow. This translucent mineral sometimes features veins or stains that, far from being considered as faults, are harnessed by artisans in order to emphasize the dominant colour, or to provide a specific aspect to the objects they are manufacturing. Since antiquity, these characteristics have endowed jade in China with a prestige equal to that of gold in the West, and it has accordingly been ascribed various virtues. 2 In fact, jade is nephrite, a precious stone that belongs to the group of the amphiboles. Its sources of extraction in China are widespread. Some of them have been identified, for example in the Lake Tai region: the Neolithic culture of Liangzhu was found there, which developed one of the most refined jade industries (cat. 18, 27). However, the definition of jade that is given by the Chinese is rather vague. The word yu is also used to qualify any stone that, without being nephrite, resembles its chemical composition, such as serpentine. Jadeite, on the other hand, whose coefficient of hardness is higher than that of nephrite, was only worked on in China from the 18 th century onwards, thanks to importations from Burma. Jade carving was carried out by abrasion, using quartz that had been amalgamated into mud, creating a mixture with which a hemp rope was then imbibed. The constant pressure of the grains of quartz against the surface of the block of jade, applied by the friction caused by the rope’s to-ing and fro-ing, would wear it down, until it was progressively carved into shape. Other techniques may have been used to produce plaques of a homogenous depth, but they are based on the same principle, i.e. the intermediary use of quartz grains. The carving that shaped the objects was followed by other operations, such as perforation (discs,

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Jades, from the Bronze Age to the Han A L A I N T H OT E Cat. 33.

Bear China, late Shang dynasty (c. 1250-1046 BC) Jade h. 4.4 cm M. Calmann bequest, 1977, Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, Paris, MA 3840

1. Bagley, 1998.

2. Xu H., 2009.

3. Hao, 2008.

At the start of the 2nd millennium BC, the introduction of bronze metallurgy brought profound socio-economical upheavals to the Central Plain. From the 16th century BC onwards, this technique had been employed to cast vessels, according to a process that was unique in the world, that involved complex section moulds.1 For over a thousand years, only a small élite was able to benefit from its applications. Ritual vessels were used to celebrate the cults, in particular the cult of the ancestors. In parallel, the manufacture of weapons, bells, chariot fittings and furnishings were developed. The technical revolution enabled by metallurgy somewhat modified the place occupied by jade in the social élite’s material culture.

Whilst it did not lose any of its prestige, it was no longer the ‘noble’ material par excellence, a change that was to greatly transform its use. However, several centuries went by before that change was complete, probably because the Neolithic inheritance remained firmly anchored in the early societies of the Bronze Age, but also because the regions that presently comprise Eastern China were not affected as rapidly by the development of metallurgy.

Erlitou culture (c. 1850-1550 BC) The beginning of the Bronze Age is known through the Erlitou culture, named after a site close to Luoyang in the Yanshi district. Erlitou was the first settlement proving the birth of the urban phenomenon in China – we estimate its population at between twenty thousand and thirty thousand inhabitants, a hitherto unprecedented concentration.2 It is the most ancient site of the production of bronze vessels. It may be due to chance that the jades were relatively scarce in the region, and their typology limited.

In the continuance of jades with sober shapes in North-west China, several weapons of prestige – with more of a symbolical value than a genuine role – and insignia of power appeared in the 17th century BC.3 The weapons included dagger-axes, ge, some notched axes in the shape of a disc biqi, which had an almost circular blade, with a large round orifice at their centre, and blades of ‘knives.’ The knives include the most impressive pieces among their number. Trapezoid in shape, they can be up to sixty centimetres long and ten centimetres wide. They were given handles and fixed by links passing through holes that are regularly spaced at the butt end. Their decoration, when present, consists of series of fine strokes, engraved in parallel, in the direction of two interlaced diagonals. The lines’ crosschecking delineates a series of lozenges. The blades of the ge, for their part, are straight, sharp and their edges incisive. Finely carved parallel strokes adorn their heel. These lines are regrouped in threes, fours or fives. Even though they are summary decorations, these characteristics are important, for they allow the production to be defined and the identification of the ways in which these prestigious goods were exchanged and disseminated. Owing to their precious character, these blades’ lifespans often lasted several centuries before being placed in the tombs.

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Animal forms Small animal shapes carved from jade are associated with funerary rituals from the end of the Neolithic period, around 2500 BC. Although archaeologists still debate the precise significance of these representations of animals, there is no denying the fact that they have been a constant feature throughout Chinese history, and that they undoubtedly correspond to an awareness of the intimate relationship at the heart of nature shared by humans and animals, forests and mountains, rivers and seas. This profound feeling has always been combined with a gift for acute observation on the part of Chinese craftsmen, who have striven to give expression in their work to the vital principle that lies at the heart of all things, a value that has always formed one of the guiding principles of Chinese aesthetics. Whatever the object they were making – be it a vase or a weapon, a cart or an architectural detail – their decorative features would tend towards figurative representation: the spout of a jug might end in a bird’s head, a spear shaft in the head of a bird of prey, a cart axle in a grotesque figure, or the ridgepole of a roof in a phoenix. Jades were not immune to this potent and widespread tendency.

The jade animal figures were depicted in silhouette, tightly coiled and compressed in the case of dragons and bears, long and slender when it came to birds and fish.

Becoming increasingly flattened in form, they began to be hung up as amulets or worn on clothes as pendants. Shown in profile, the figures are distinctively graphic and lively, capturing the most striking features of the animal in question: the squashed snout of a pig (cat. 25); a bear’s square muzzle (cat. 33); the pointed crest and beak of a bird (cat. 55e); the fluid lines of a prowling tiger (cat. 38); the rounded bulk of an elephant (cat. 55d); the streamlined contours of a fish (cat. 54) or the extended neck of a cormorant in flight (cat. 55b).

M A R I E- C AT H ER I N E R E Y

Cat. 54.

Fish China Jade a and d: pair of pendants in the shape of fish, late Shang – early Western Zhou, 12 th -11th century BC, l. 8.2 cm, w. 1.8 cm, MA 3861 (b), l. 8.7 cm, w. 1.8 cm, MA 3861 (a) b: stylet in the shape of a fish, late Shang dynasty (c. 1250-1046 BC), l. 10.4 cm, w. 1,2 cm, MA 3852 c: ear-pick in the shape of a fish, late Shang dynasty (c. 1250-1046 BC), l. 6.8 cm, w. 0.9 cm, MA 3853 M. Calmann bequest, 1977, Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, Paris

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The Continuity of Styles throughout the Ages M A R I E- C AT H ER I N E R E Y Cat. 62.

Headdress decorated with a dragon among flowers China, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) Jade, wood (stand) h. 6.1 cm, w. 6.9 cm, d. 4.7 cm National Palace Museum, Taipei, inv. Zhongtong 18

1. Translated after Legge 1967, vol. 2, p. 464.

It was the belief in ancient Chinese cultures that jade had the power to preserve dead bodies, and hence its use to cover the dead during funerary rituals, coupled with the Chinese emperors’ role in ensuring that these ceremonies endured, that led to the emergence of a veritable ‘jade culture’ in China.

Developing throughout China from the Neolithic period, it laid down for future generations the forms, decorative motifs and functions that are associated with jade objects. This interdependence, preserved with meticulous care down the centuries, became the fundamental form of expression of an artistic culture that made no distinction – unlike in the West, where such discrepancies were cherished – between the fine and applied arts. Indeed, with the exception of calligraphy, which found its natural extension in painting, all the arts in China were the work of craftsmen who were essentially linked by official commissions. Thus Chinese society, its stability and its values, both aesthetic and moral, acquired extremely solid foundations.

Confucius consummately expressed the confluence of the qualities of the raw material as found in nature and of those of the same material as transformed by the work of a craftsman, a convergence that would reveal the fundamental values both of jade and of life in society: ‘The gentlemen of Antiquity found the likeness of all excellent qualities in jade.

Warm, smooth and glossy, it appeared to them like benevolence; fine, compact and strong, like intelligence; angular, but not sharp and cutting, like righteousness; hanging down (in beads) as if it would fall to the ground, like (the humility of) propriety; when struck, yielding a note, clear and prolonged, yet terminating abruptly, like music; its flaws not concealing its beauty, nor its beauty concealing its flaws, like loyalty; with an internal radiance issuing from it on every side, like good faith; its radiance rising as a rainbow, like heaven; its spirit appearing in the mountains and streams, like earth; plaques and half-plaques are fashioned from it, which the envoys of the princes offer as sole gifts (without the addition of other offerings) standing out, conspicuous in the symbols of rank, like virtue; esteemed by all under the sky, like the path of truth and duty.’1 The craftsmen who worked in the imperial workshops, creating works for imperial commissions and immersed in their ‘face-to-face’ encounters with a raw material that had to be transformed into a precious material and a precious object, were themselves shaped by these qualities that formed the intrinsic aim of their work, and were driven by an acute awareness of the balance between fragility and strength, the cardinal virtue of the society in which they lived. The pieces that emerged from their hands derived their beauty from the combination of the durability of the raw material and the fragile delicacy of the forms into which they carved it, the liveliness of the figures and the respect observed for the conventions governing their depiction: qualities that lived on beyond the conditions of their production or manufacture. The history of jade, a stone that is hard to work

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The Taste of Chinese Literati H U EI - C H U N G T SAO

Cat. 84.

Kaogu tu (Illustrated Catalogue of Antiquities) Lü Dalin, 1092 China, Qing dynasty, new edition 1752 Woodblock print h. 28.6 cm, w. 18 cm Acquisition, 1899, Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, Paris, BG 22683

Cat. 85.

Cong-shaped vase China, Southern Song – Yuan dynasties (1127-1368) Jade, wood (stand) h. 19.4 cm, diam. 7.1 cm (opening), diam. 6.5 cm (base) National Palace Museum, Taipei, Guyu 1972

1. For Mi Fu, see Beurdeley, 1966, pp. 62-70.

From the fall of the Han dynasty (3rd century) until the Tang dynasty (618-907) the influences from Central and Western Asia, which travelled via the Steppe and the Silk Road, intensified. Under the Song dynasty (960-1279) the appropriation of these borrowings, combined with a return to the sources of traditionalist cultures, gave birth to the scholarly culture that is considered to be the heart of Chinese artistic creation.

Prelude: Under the Song dynasty (960-1279) As a major corps d’ élite of the empire, placed at the highest rank in the Confucian hierarchy, scholars were recruited according to an examination system based on the knowledge of the Classics. Beginning in the 11th century, this principle of competence-based social advancement led to the forging of a culture that was shaped by moral values and nourished by references to the great masters. Su Shi (1037-1101) and Mi Fu (1051-1107), who were calligraphers, poets, painters, and knowledgeable collectors, are among the most famous, who laid the foundations for the ‘scholarly taste.’1 The wealthiest scholars surrounded themselves with objects emblematic of their spiritual, intellectual, and artistic journeys. To store their ‘treasures,’ they even built a pavilion to which they liked to retire as and when their administrative obligations permitted. On the occasion of the construction of the ‘Pavilion of the Painting Treasures’ (Baohui tang) of Wang Xian in 1077, Su Shi advised him to act like a Confucian collector, i.e., to impart a moral significance to objects (yu yi yu wu 寓意於物) and not one of entertainment (liu yi yu wu 留意於 物). This manifesto of the scholarly mind of the collector, forbidding any indulgence in the pure pleasure of the senses, according to the precepts of Laozi, came down through the ages until it reached Emperor Qianlong (r. 1736-1795).

In search of the past It was at the end of the 10th century, in his Illustrations of the Three Rites (Sanli tu), that academician Nie Chongyi attempted to reconstruct ancient jade objects from sources dating back to the Eastern Han dynasty (26-220). Due to a lack of available archaeological models, interpretations based on ancient texts are often purely imaginative; still, we note the predominance of bi discs and gui and zhang tablets, paragons of ritual jade. Nearly a century later, in 1092, Lü Dalin published an Illustrated Catalogue of Antiquities (Kaogu tu). The tenvolume work contains 234 objects, of which a mere ten items are jade (cat. 84). In its wake, in 1107, Emperor Huizong sponsored an inventory of 839 bronzes from the Xuanhe Palace collection: that catalogue, the Xuanhe bogu tu, compiled by Wang Fu in thirty volumes, was completed in 1123. The epigraphic studies, as well as those of archaic bronzes of the kind emulated in these two latter works, were conducted by the scholars with a true concern for scientific accuracy,

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Jade, Ritual and Power A D R I EN BOSSA R D Cat. 114.

Gui tablet Northern China, Neolithic period, Longshan-Qijia type culture (c. 23001500 BC) Jade h. 24 cm, w. 4.5 cm G. Gieseler donation, 1932, Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, Paris, MG 18383

1. Wen C. F., 1983, p. 20. In 1092, Lü Dalin describes thirteen objects in jade in the Kaogu tu, while two hundred and eleven bronzes were studied.

2. Biot, 1851, vol. 1, XVIII, pp. 434-435.

3. Clunas, 1997, pp. 206-207.

4. Elman and Kern, 2010, p. 218.

Jade has been associated with power in China since the Neolithic age; it is no coincidence that the character yu, identifying that rare and symbolical stone, was for a long time identical to that of the character wang, meaning ‘king’, in oracular inscriptions and on bronze, as well as in the first dictionary by Xu Shen (c. 58-c.147). In that character, three lines horizontally superimposed, representing Heaven, the Sovereign and the Earth, are linked by a vertical stroke: 王. More than any other material, this stone is also a symbol of power and prestige, due to that privileged relationship with the king. Like the latter, jade is a conveyor of communication between the founding powers of the universe; a medium between the celestial and earthly worlds.

Despite the early awakening of an interest in the subject,1 the use of jade objects in the rituals of Chinese Antiquity is still relatively unknown. This is probably due to the philological origins of the rites practiced from the Han (206 BC – 220 AD) to the Qing (1644-1911), based on the Zhouli (Rites of Zhou), a compilation from the 4th century BC of the practices at the court of the Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BC). The meaning of parts of this ancient text has in fact been lost over time. If modern archaeology has not enabled the elucidation of the question concerning the most ancient uses, it is nonetheless possible to come upon certain rites by basing ourselves on that work. It remains a major historical source for the study of ritual jades, if only through its status as an orthodox reference for the following dynasties.

Jade in the imperial rituals The Zhouli mentions the rules to be respected for the utilization of jade within a ceremonial context: ‘With the round tablet, of a clear-blue colour (Pi), he pays homage to heaven. With the Tsong tablet in a yellow colour, he pays homage to the earth. With the oblong tablet (Koueï) in a dark blue colour, he pays homage to the Eastern region. With the half-Koueï in a red colour, he pays homage to the Southern region. With the Hou tablet, with the figure of a tiger and in a white colour, he pays homage to the Western region. With the half-Pi in a black colour, he pays homage to the Northern region.’ 2 Here we find the evocation of Neolithic forms of jade objects playing a well-defined part in official ceremonies as early as the 2nd millennium BC, an ongoing practice until the Qing dynasty. Furthermore, it is interesting to note the timeless impact of the Zhou’s rites, in accordance with the wish of Emperor Jiajing (r. 1521-1566) to respect the colours set out in the ancient text, with a concern for the revitalization of the cult of heaven, even if agate and rock crystal must have been used, owing to the impossibility of finding red and yellow jades. 3 These rules, taken from the texts of Antiquity, 4 ensured the efficiency of the ritual and in fact instated a continuity that transcended the dynastic cycles. In the rituals, jade occupied a key position,

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The CollectorEmperors (17 t h AND 18 t h CENTURIES) M A R I E- C AT H ER I N E R E Y Cat. 124.

Brush washer decorated with clouds and dragons China, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-1795) Jade h. 7.2 cm, l. 19.5 cm National Palace Museum, Taipei, inv. Guyu 2963

1. As foreigners, the Manchu were not welcomed, especially by the educated elite who remained loyal to the Ming dynasty.

2. Lin C.-H., 2006, p. 31.

3. Jingdezhen, at Jiangxi, in the southeast of China, has been a major centre of Chinese ceramic manufacture since the Tang dynasty. In 1663, the Kangxi emperor established the imperial porcelain manufacture there. Under the Qing, Father d’Entrecolles (1664-1741), a Jesuit missionary who wrote two letters from China in 1712 and 1722, revealed the secrets of the manufacture of Chinese porcelain to Europe. There were then eighteen thousand families of potters working at Jingdezhen.

4. Cf. Rey, 2006 and Geneva, 2014.

5. For example, the Gengzhi tu (Book of Rice Cultivation and Sericulture), which described the two most emblematic Chinese agricultural products – rice and silk – and landscapes associated with them, were inscribed on huge quantities of famille verte porcelain. This was also the subject of a Song dynasty album reprinted on the orders of Kangxi, cf. Rey, 2006.

6. The Qianlong emperor’s appreciation of the culture and landscapes of the south, the traditional land of retreat for literati, was more than strategic and political. On several occasions he was moved by places he visited on these journeys, and it was on his return from his ‘six journeys in the South’ that he decided to enlarge the Yuanming yuan – the Summer Palace – to cover an area of over 150 hectares.

7. Under the Kangxi emperor, scholars were hounded by the political powers: in 1713, a member of the prestigious Brushwood Academy was executed.

Cf. Durand, 1992.

When the Qing emperors from Manchuria conquered China,1 they founded their dynasty on two values that shaped the entire history of the Chinese empire: on the one hand, in order to ensure peace throughout their vast territories, a centralized system of government resting on a network of officials who were considered as both the agents and the guarantors of stability; and on the other, to maintain respect for ancestral traditions, the preservation of the values of Confucianism in order to reawaken the ‘legitimist reflexes’ of civil society.2 Among the methods and vectors of these values, through which political prestige and moral and intellectual qualities were reaffirmed, were the imperial workshops. The activities of the Jingdezhen porcelain kilns3 and the painting studios located within the precincts of the imperial palace were relaunched as early as the reign of the Kangxi emperor (r. 1662-1722). There the court painters created narrative paintings largely celebrating the deeds of the emperor,4 while numerous pieces of porcelain were covered with painted decorations on the subjects of episodes from history or the practices of ‘good government.’5 Similarly, the ‘transfer’ of an album page onto a block of jade (fig. 1, p. 178, cat. 147) emphasized the shared nature of the prestige accorded jointly to an album celebrating the illustrious deeds of the emperor and to a ‘leaf of jade’ describing a time and place that were of fundamental importance in demonstrating the Qianlong emperor’s attachment to tradition, an attachment he had inherited from his grandfather and from imperial journeys in the south of China.6 This same aim also lay behind the decision to reprint ancient texts, carefully selected for their high reputation among scholarly circles, even as more recalcitrant members of this class were being hounded and put on trial.7 This movement of reviving ancient sources was accompanied by a parallel movement aimed at suppressing or even destroying works that were considered hostile to the new dynasty, on the emperor’s explicit orders: ‘If books contain writings by authors of the Ming era who are opposed to our dynasty, they are to be set aside and burned.’8 The policy of respect and confirmation on which the new Chinese emperors embarked was therefore one of great subtlety, put in place by the Kangxi emperor and pursued by his son and his grandson. The reign of Yongzheng (r. 1723-1735) was nonetheless marked by a more literary tone, as demonstrated by the works produced during the period (cat. 145, 146). Far more confident, both because of the longevity of his reign9 and because of his prolific writings,10 Qianlong in some ways represented the apogee of the Manchu project of a ‘perfect reign,’ founded on the proclamation of regulations and of methods of government rooted in the empire’s ancient traditions. The emperor described himself as the ‘Emperor of Plenitude’ and of the ‘Ten Challenges’ that he set himself:11 ‘To be happy; to live a long life; to have a long reign; to gain new lands; to be generous; to be in good health; to be wise; to have a large literary output of several thousand poems; and to be the best administrator and the most celebrated among emperors.’12

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The Taste of Emperor Qianlong CONFRONTING THE ‘DEBACLE OF JADE’1 C H A N G LI -T UA N Cat. 133.

Vase in archaistic style decorated with chrysanthemums Engraved with a poem by the emperor Qianlong China, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-1795) Jade h. 24.5 cm, w. 12.5 cm, d. 4 cm Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, Paris, MG 3738

1. Editor’s note: this article is an extract from a longer article by the author.

2. The name given to the reign, Qianlong, means ‘he who has gained heavenly support.’

Deceased at the age of eighty, the emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) exercised his power for sixty years (1736-1795) before retiring, thus shortening his reign by four years at his life’s end. This ‘protégé of Heaven’2 loved the arts and literature, and devoted his moments of leisure to poetry, calligraphy and painting, as well as to admiring art objects. He also devoted himself to writing, describing the little nothings of life or giving his point of view on art. His writings allow us to better understand what image of himself the emperor wished to convey.

Among his approximately forty thousand writings, poetry and prose, more than eight hundred are in praise of jade, expressing a point of view of antique jades or of contemporary production. The Archives of the Office of Workshops in the Imperial Household indicate that, very often, Qianlong supervised all the work processes on jade at court himself. He had thus promulgated an imperial decree, showing that he could intervene throughout the whole creation process for eventual rectifications, so that the style would meet his aesthetical requirements. But what is even more striking in his writings, was his uncompromising gaze. Thus, he got carried away against the ‘debacle of jade’ in a poem written in 1783, when he found himself unable to endorse the direction taken by the production of jades in his time.

The manufacturing of jades at that point was not the prerogative of the imperial workshops, and Chinese society had also endowed itself with a whole organisation of jade production of an emphatically commercial character. That production of an unknown style, correctly entitled ‘new style,’ was very popular and so was also called a ‘style in vogue.’ But Qianlong did not approve of such infatuation, even manifesting genuine disgust towards what he deemed to be a veritable shipwreck.

The style in vogue in Chinese society In fact, Qianlong had already disqualified that search for unusual innovations as early as 1774, judging the new style ‘flashy’ and of a ‘vulgar skilfulness.’ But it was in 1781 that the imperial anger erupted. The following years saw a flowering of a number of ‘manufactories of the strange,’ ‘multiplication of the layers,’ ‘vulgarity and uncouthness,’ ‘work lacking in refinement,’ etc., all aimed at vilifying the style called ‘in vogue,’ which he himself qualified as a ‘vulgar style,’ and this until the end of his life, since the term still appeared in his writings in 1797, when he had already abdicated two years before.

The new style can be categorised in four processes: excessive openwork as a manufacturing trick; accumulation, consisting in cutting out large quantities of flowers and leaves; the ascendancy of the original material over the definitive shape and the imitation of shanshui landscape paintings. The emperor Qianlong had established that the phenomenon of the ‘debacle of jade’ was defined by the existence, without even considering their popularity, of the first

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‘Inscribed in Jade for Eternity’ N AT H A LI E M O N N E T

Fig. 1 Portrait of one of the sixteen arhats (Buddhist saints) After Guanxiu (832-912) China, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-1795), 1764 Rubbing on paper h. 120 cm, w. 52 cm Bibliothèque nationale de France, Manuscrits orientaux, inv. Estampages Pelliot 168-16

Cat. 156.

Shanzi miniature mountain sheltering an arhat Engraved with a poem by the emperor Qianlong China, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-1795) Jade h. 18.3 cm, w. 22 cm National Palace Museum, Taipei, inv. Guyu 1522

‘Jade has known multiple applications over the course of the centuries: the study of jade involves an overview of a whole history of Chinese culture.‘1 So wrote Paul Pelliot, one of the first to introduce jade to the French public. The Chinese emperors made great use of this noble material, making it an integral part of their communion with their ancestors and with the spirits of Heaven and Earth, as demonstrated by the prayers of supplication composed for the high rituals of the imperial investitures that took place on Mount Tai, the most famous sacred mountain in China. Fifteen jade tablets were discovered there, engraved under the Tang emperor Xuanzong in the year 725 with inscriptions dedicated to the spirit of the Earth. The Zhenzong emperor of the Northern Song dynasty practiced the same propitiation rite there in 1008, contriving – despite a lack of either jade or experienced engravers2 – to have his own supplication inscribed on sixteen white jade tablets in characters highlighted in gold ink. This combination of jade and gold ink, which dates back to the beginning of the Christian era, 3 was to become the standard treatment for inscriptions of solemn significance.

The ancestral funeral tablets of the Qing, the last Chinese imperial dynasty (1644-1911), preserved the honorific titles of the deceased on jade in order to ensure that their name would be remembered forever. The most ancient were inscribed shortly after the Qing dynasty had seized power, with a view to increasing the lustre of the new imperial line.4 One of these tablets, consisting of eight ‘leaves’ embedded in silk, conferred the retrospective title of Empress on a forebear of the young emperor Shunzhi, while another endowed a posthumous title on a sixth-generation ancestor. 5 A set of ten jade tablets, inscribed using blue and gold inks in Chinese and Manchu at the command of Kangxi in 1661, confirmed the posthumous titles officially conferred on the dynasty’s founder.6 Among the items that have come down to us, we can also mention two ancestral stelae7 produced in the first year of the reign of Kangxi’s successor, Yongzheng. Each one is inscribed with seven columns of nineteen characters, as well as a set of funerary tablets giving official recognition to the posthumous names bestowed on Qianlong upon his death in 1799. 8 Among Quianlong’s favourite jades were Mughal pieces offered to him in tribute, which inspired him to write some fifty poems in their praise.9 He used the finest vases, dishes and cups as his personal tableware, doubtless in the belief that the virtues of longevity attributed to jade would be transferred to the food that he ate and drank from them. He valued the extremely high quality of their execution, their delicacy to the touch, and a finesse that he used to liken to that of paper – which might perhaps account for his repeated use of jade as a medium for the written word during his reign. Over forty of these fine pieces inscribed with his lengthy commentaries or poems have survived.

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Jades from China and Elsewhere ARTISTIC INTERACTIONS BETWEEN THE CHINESE EMPIRE AND THE ISLAMIC WORLD IN THE 14 th -18 th CENTURIES

SO PH I E M A K A R IO U

In memory of Ernst Grube (1932-2011), a dear friend and attentive reader

Cat. 165.

Wine bowl

Al-Biruni (973-1048), the Persian polymath who possessed one of the most brilliant minds of the eleventh century, left an immense body of work behind.

Towards the end of his life (probably after 1037) he wrote the earliest surviving work on mineralogy. The book starts with a general discussion of the philosophical principles imposed by the study of gems and metals, not without moral judgements. Al-Biruni then proceeds, in two successive discourses, with an analysis of forty stones and metals; these include pearls and bezoars, which are not part of the mineral kingdom. Jade comes in fourteenth place, with a brief chapter.1 Al-Biruni identifies the place in which jade is mined as Khotan, an uncertain yet tangible border zone between the Islamic world and the Chinese empire.

Situated in eastern Turkestan (now the Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang), Khotan (Hetian in Mandarin) lay on the southern branch of the Silk Road as it skirted the Taklamakan Desert. After the Battle of Talas (present-day Kyrgyzstan) in 751, when the armies of the nascent Abassid Caliphate overcame those of the Chinese Tang dynasty, Khotan and its jade reserves remained out of reach of the Islamic empire for centuries. Yet Al-Biruni’s text linked both the town and the region to yashm, a curious stone that has been identified as jade: ‘It is said that yashm and a type of this stone, called hajar al-ghalba, is used by the Turks to decorate their saddles, swords and belts, so that they may vanquish their enemies.’ Many virtues, including notably the ability to cure gastric ailments, were attributed to it.

Fragmentary though this early testimony is, we may deduce from it that Al-Biruni had encountered the stone first hand: he knew that it was hard to carve, and could be ‘cut only by a diamond’. He knew that it could vary in colour, ‘tending to be black and opaque’ – and called sabaj if it was of an intense black – when it came from the Karakash valley, and ‘white as curdled milk’ when it came from Khotan. Unlike many writers who came after him, he made a distinction between yashm and yashb (‘jasper’), which were frequently confused as the Arabic names were identical except for their last letter.2 Jade was therefore known from the eleventh century, and Al-Biruni associated it with the ‘King of Qatai’ (the emperor of China), with pebbles carried by certain rivers and with the carving of precious objects, including rings endowed with healing properties. But at the same time we struggle to identify even the smallest item in carved jade in the Islamic world before the second quarter of the fifteenth century at the earliest, despite recent attempts to date a number of works to an earlier date than the one generally agreed upon.3 A deep cup in

India or Central Asia, Timurid period (1370-1506), 15th century Jade, traces of gold h. 6.8 cm, diam. 14.4 cm K. Khan donation, 2011, former collections of Louis XIV, Paris, Musée du Louvre, département des Arts de l’Islam, MR 199

1. Islamabad, 1989, pp. 170-171.

2. It has sometimes been suggested that the word yashm is Sogdian in origin.

3. Melikian-Chirvani, 1997, notably p. 123.

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From the Summer Palace to the Palace of Fontainebleau THE CHINESE MUSEUM OF EMPRESS EUGÉNIE AND ITS COLLECTIONS V I N C EN T D ROGU E T Cat. 181.

Perfumer with openwork decoration China, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-1795) Jade, wood (stand) h. 22 cm, w. 4 cm (jade) Musée national du château de Fontainebleau, F 1438 C1 and F 1438 C2

1. For the history of the arrangement of the salons and the Empress’ Chinese Museum, see Samoyault-Verlet et al., 1994; Droguet, 2011; McQueen, 2011.

2. Regarding this diplomatic delegation and the objects given to Napoléon III and Eugénie, see Salmon, 2011.

‘We entered the Chinese Salon for tea. Its curiosities are wonderful: pagodas of gold and enamel, enormous idols, gigantic vases sparkling in the glow of chandeliers and candelabra.’

OCTAVE FEUILLET, Quelques années de ma vie

The creation of the salons and Empress Eugénie’s Chinese Museum at the Palace of Fontainebleau in the year 1863 resulted in an encounter that was unexpected, to say the least, between the ‘anecdotal history’ of that royal residence and the military and diplomatic ‘narrative history’ of the Second Empire.

Since 1861, in the old Valois palace constantly overhauled by the Bourbons, the empress had wanted to have comfortable reception rooms, wide open to the outside and arranged in her taste, where she could gather the society that surrounded her during her summer stays. The south-facing rooms on the ground floor of the Grand Pavilion afforded magnificent views of the carp pond and direct access to the English garden. So it was on those that the empress focused her attention, and in 1861, palace architect Alexis Paccard was charged with devising plans to fulfil the sovereign’s wishes. However, the plans for these salons were not finally implemented until two years later, in the spring of 1863, but with the necessity to allow for a new factor that would greatly influence their appearance: the display in these four rooms of all of the Far Eastern objects that the empress had acquired in the interim.1 The hundreds of Asian objets d’art that would be installed in Empress Eugénie’s new salons at Fontainebleau, which were always displayed according to her wishes, had two main sources. The bulk of these objects came from shipments made to the rulers by the French expeditionary force that, alongside the British army, had participated in the China campaign, during which the occupation, looting, and burning of the Summer Palace – the famous Yuanming yuan – had occurred in October 1860. The second, much smaller group of objects – just shy of seventy – were diplomatic gifts brought by the diplomatic delegation from Siam, sent by King Mongkut (Rama IV). These were received with great pomp in the palace ballroom on 27 June 18612.

Far from being diplomatic gifts, the Chinese objects received by Napoléon III and Eugénie early in 1861 had been seized by French officers and soldiers from the Yuanming yuan. Abandoned by Emperor Xianfeng and his court in the aftermath of the battle of Palikao on 21 September 1860 – a battle that resulted in a decisive victory for the West and that opened the road to Beijing – the Summer Palace had been virtually empty of all its occupants when the French troops

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From the Chinese Style to Art Deco M A R I E- C AT H ER I N E R E Y Cat. 203.

Flowers Cartier Paris, 1937 Gold, metal, pink and white enamel (petals), moonstone cabochons (centres), jade (leaves), green enamel (stems), white onyx (pot), fluorite (interior), amazonite (rings), obsidian (pot stand), wood (base), ivory (base), glass (display case) h. 17.5 cm, w. 12.8 cm, d. 12.9 cm Sold to the Duchess of Talleyrand, Cartier Collection, inv. FL 02 A37 The piece is set in a glass display case on a lacquered wooden base covered with an ivory plaque.

1. The term ‘chinoiserie’ was originally used to denote works that displayed a pronounced exoticism, especially as inspired by an idealized vision of China, which was to reach its most charming expression in the eighteenth century around the paintings of Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) and François Boucher (17031770).

2. Philippe Burty (1830-1890), art critic, collector and contributor to the Gazette des beaux-arts.

3. The major French sinologists involved in the new archaeological discoveries that would enter museum collections were Edouard Chavannes (1865-1918), Victor Segalen (1878-1919) and Paul Pelliot (1878-1945).

4. Georges Salles (1889-1966) was at this time a curator in the department of Asian Arts at the Louvre.

5. Jules de Goncourt (1830-1870) and Edmond de Goncourt (1822-1896) had links with all the contemporary dealers and connoisseurs specializing in Far Eastern art.

6. Goncourt, 1881.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period that was generally dominated by the vogue for Japonism, collectors, art dealers, galleries and museums in Paris evinced a fascination for the ‘Chinese style.’ For avant-garde artists, this was to offer the opportunity for a new and questioning approach. As the supremacy of Japan waned and the Parisian art market gradually changed, it was Chinese art that was to represent the new modernism. Paris now witnessed the death of the ‘chinoiseries’1 associated with the waning Second Empire, now revealed in all their true mediocrity. As the well-informed collector Philippe Burty 2 put it bluntly, the Chinese pieces displayed at the Exposition Universelle of 1878 were just ‘absurd huge vases.’

Some twenty years later, new museums sprang up in which China was to feature prominently: in Paris, the Musée Guimet opened in 1889 and the Musée Cernuschi in 1898. The Musée d’Ennery, which opened in 1908, displayed the picturesque collection amassed by Clémence d’Ennery, containing Chinese and Japanese furniture and figurines, as well as quantities of Chinese porcelain and jade. In parallel, the scholarly pursuit of sinological studies3 culminated in 1934 with the remarkable exhibition of ancient Chinese bronzes organized

by Georges Salles 4 at the Musée de l’Orangerie. This convergence of different strands of interest in China brought forward-thinking collectors, specialist dealers and distinguished scholars together in Paris. Meanwhile, a growing number of connoisseurs and art-lovers also rekindled the enthusiasms of eighteenth-century Europe, the period of the three great Qing emperors and of the outstanding features of the dynasty’s early period: the charm and variety of the famille verte porcelain and lacquer furniture from the reign of the Kangxi emperor (r. 1662-1722), the refined aestheticism of Yongzheng (r. 1723-1735) and the splendour of the reign of Qianlong (r. 1736-1795).

The Goncourt brothers,5 with their combined interest in the eighteenth century and modernism, were enthusiastic proponents and chroniclers of these new developments. Edmond was forever stressing that he and Jules were trailblazers in the field: ‘This passion for chinoiserie and japonaiserie! We were the first!’ These men of letters became the first ‘modernists’ when they rejected the craze for exoticism that had dragged chinoiserie down to the level of trashy gewgaws. Edmond de Goncourt’s own response to the contemplation of jade and porcelain echoed those of Chinese writers: ‘Chinese porcelain! This porcelain that is superior to all other porcelain on earth! This porcelain that down the centuries, and throughout the world, has inspired more impassioned followers than any other field of curiosity! […] This product of an industrial art lauded by the poets of the Far East, just as we sing the praises of a beautiful landscape, a piece of divine creation! This earthly substance, finally, shaped by the hands of man into an object of light, glowing with the soft colours of precious stones.’6 He transformed his house at Auteuil into a ‘nest brimming over with

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Annexes

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Jade in the Chinese world from the Neolithic period X IN J I AN G Manas Tian Shan Kashi (Kashgar) m

and

G AN S U

ur

Y

s a ka

h

Ka r

gk

as h

Shache (Yarkand)

Y

Tari

ark

un

Hetian (Khotan)

Kunlun Mountains

Q IN G H AI

T IB E T

S

Y U NN

0

200

400

1: 12, 000, 000

600 km

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HE IL O N G J I AN G

J IL IN INNER MONGOLIA Shir

r a Mu

ila en (X

Mul

un)

Xinglongwa

L I A O NIN G Niuheliang

Dongshanzui

Lia

o

Xiuyan

U

Jade deposits currently under exploitation Principal towns

Beijing (Peking) Ordos

HE B E I

Shimao

Yel lo (Hu w Ri an ver gh e)

Pingshan

S H AN X I Longshan Mount Tai Dawenkou

an

g

he

)

NIN G X I A

Ye

Houma Luoyang

Xi’an Baoji

r( ve

llo

w

Ri

Taosi

Qijiaping

Hu

Anyang

Erlitou

S H AND O N G

Kaifeng Zhengzhou

J I AN G S U

HE N AN

Lantian

S H A AN X I

ANH U I Lingjiatan

HUBEI Sanxingdui Shijiahe

Chengdu

Suzhou Shanghai

Lake Tai Songze

Y (Y ang an tz gz e R i j iv ia e ng r )

S I C H UAN

Yangzhou Nanjing (Nanking)

Liangzhu Hangzhou Hemudu

Z HE J I AN G

Sunjiagang Changsha

H U N AN

J I AN G X I

Gaomiao

GUI Z HOU

F U J I AN Taipei

Y U NN AN

Fengtian

G UAN G X I

G UAN G D O N G Guangzhou (Canton)

TAI WAN

Hong Kong Aomen (Macau)

H AIN AN 277

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The Islamic world and the Chinese world LAKE BALKHASH

D

rates ph Tig ri

Tabriz

Balkh

Mosul

Cyprus

Herat

Damascus Ctesiphon MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Yarkand

Merv

s

Antioch

Samarkand

Sh Kashgar Tian

Bamiyan

nd ka s

Kabul

Baghdad Ispahan

ar

Peshawar Lahore

du

s

Cairo In

Delhi Agra Fathepur Sikri

Medina Masqat Mecca

GULF OF OMAN

Goa

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Kho an

Eu

Am u

ya ar

Istanbul (Constantinople) Bursa

CASPIAN SEA

K

BLACK SEA

ar ya

Yar ak a h

Sy rD

ARAL SEA

Kh

Yu

r

Kun lu

LAKE BAIKAL

Karakorum

n Sha n Tarim gar Tia

K

ar

war

Khotan

Yar ak a h

nd ka s

Dunhuang

w

River

Yello

SH

Beijing (Peking)

Khotan

Yu

r ungkash

s Kun l u n M o u n t ai n

Kaifeng

Xi’an

YELLOW SEA

Yangzhou

ahore

ngtze Riv Ya er

Suzhou Hangzhou

elhi

Agra Sikri

Quanzhou

es

G ang

EAST CHINA SEA

Burmese jade deposits

Goa GULF OF BENGAL

SOUTH CHINA SEA

Sri Lanka (Ceylon) 279

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The principal Neolithic jade cultures and a chronology of China to 1911 NEOLITHIC PERIOD

IMPERIAL CHINA

N ORTH - EASTERN C HINA Xinglongwa culture (c. 6200-5200 BC) Hongshan culture (c. 4500-3000 BC)

Q IN DYNAST Y (221-207 BC)

S OUTH - EASTERN C HINA Lower Yangtze region, around Lake Tai Hemudu culture (c. 5000-3000 BC) Songze culture (c. 3900-3200 BC) Liangzhu culture (c. 3200-2200 BC) Lower Yangtze region, south of the River Huai Lingjiatan culture (c. 3600-3200 BC) Xuejiagang culture (c. 3500-2800 BC) Middle Yangtze region Shijiahe culture (c. 2300-1800 BC) Post-Shijiahe (Xiaojiawuji) culture (c. 2100-1700 BC) Upper Yangtze region Sanxingdui culture (c. 5000-1200 BC) Late phase (c. 1600-1200 BC) N ORTHERN C HINA Lower Yellow River region Dawenkou culture (c. 4100-2300 BC) Longshan culture (c. 2300-1800 BC) Middle Yellow River region Shimao culture (c. 2300-1800 BC) Taosi culture (c. 2300-1800 BC) Upper Yellow River region Qijia culture (c. 2300-1500 BC)

H AN DYNAST Y (206 BC – 220 AD) Western Han (or Earlier Han) (206 BC – 8 AD) Xin (9-23) Eastern Han (or Later Han) (25-220) T HREE K INGDOMS PERIOD (220-280) Wei (220-265) Shu (221-263) Wu (222-280) J IN DYNAST Y (265- 420) Western Jin (265-316) Eastern Jin (317-420) N ORTHERN AND S OUTHERN DYNASTIES PERIOD (386-589) Northern dynasties Northern Wei (386-534) Eastern Wei (534-550) / Western Wei (535-557) Northern Qi (550-577) / Northern Zhou (557-581) Southern dynasties Song (420-479) Southern Qi (497-502) Southern Liang (502-557) Later Liang (Western Liang) (555-587) / Chen (557-589) S UI DYNAST Y (581-618) TANG DYNAST Y (618-907) Zhou (690-705) F IVE D YNASTIES AND T EN K INGDOMS PERIOD (907-979)

FIRST DYNASTIES

L IAO DYNAST Y (907-1125)

X IA DYNAST Y ( C . 2070-1600 BC [?])

Erlitou culture (c. 1850-c. 1550 BC)

S ONG DYNAST Y (960-1279) Northern Song (960-1127) Southern Song (1127-1279)

S HANG DYNAST Y ( C . 1600-1046 BC) Erligang period (c. 1600-c. 1300 BC) Anyang period (c. 1300-1046 BC) Z HOU DYNAST Y (1046-256 BC) Western Zhou (1046-771 BC) Eastern Zhou (770-256 BC) Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BC) Warring States period (475-221 BC)

X IXIA DYNAST Y (1038-1227) J IN DYNAST Y (1115-1234) Y UAN DYNAST Y (1271-1368) M ING DYNAST Y (1368-1644) Q ING DYNAST Y (1644-1911) Shunzhi period (1644-1661) Kangxi period (1662-1722) Yongzheng period (1723-1735) Qianlong period (1736-1795) Jiaqing period (1796-1820) Daoguang period (1821-1850) Xianfeng period (1851-1861) Tongzhi period (1862-1874) Guangxu period (1875-1908) Xuantong period (1909-1911)

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Beijing, 2009b Jiangxi Ming dai fanwang mu, Beijing, Wenwu chubanshe, 2009.

Beijing, 2010 Mingjia lunyu: 2009 Zhuhai ‘Zhongguo yuwenhua mingjia luntan’ wenji, Beijing, Kexue chubanshe, 2010.

Beijing, 2011a Gugong bowuyuan cangpin daxi. Yuqi bian (Compendium of collections in the Palace Museum. Jade), Beijing, Zijincheng chubanshe, 2011, 10 vol.

Beijing, 2011b Wenjiashan, Beijing, Kexue chubanshe, 2011.

Beijing, 2011c Yugen guomai: Xiuyan yu yu Zhongguo yuwenhua xueshu yantaohui wenji, Beijing, Kexue chubanshe, 2011.

Beijing, 2012a Niuheliang: Hongshan wenhua yizhi fajue baogao (1983-2003 niandu), Beijing, Wenwu chubanshe, 2012.

Beijing, 2012b Shanchuan jingying: Zhongguo yu Moxige gudai yushi wenming (Essence of Nature: Civilization of Ancient Jade in China and Mexico), Beijing, Gugong chubanshe, 2012.

Beijing, 2013 Tiandi zhi ling. Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo fajue chutu Shang yu Xi Zhou yuqi jingpinzhan (Exhibition of Jade articles in Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties from the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Beijing, Beijing meishu sheying chubanshe, 2013.

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