Feb., 1912. 



Jade. 



293 



peaks are sublime as if painted, and that this piece is the most remark- 

 able of all jades. This design is certainly interesting in that it reflects 

 the style of mountain-painting during the T'ang dynasty, — and it is 

 doubtless copied from some great landscapist of the period, — and in 

 that it offers the oldest known example of a carving of mountain scenery 

 in jade of which the lapidary artists of the Ming and the eighteenth 

 century renaissance period have left us such glorious examples. 



Fig. 195. 



Central Plaques from Jade Court-Girdle of the T'ang Dynasty, with Mountain Scenery 



(from Ku yU t'u p'u). 



The emperors of the Sung and Ming dynasties retained the jade 

 girdles of their predecessors, until they were abolished with the rise of 

 the present Manchu dynasty which set up new regulations in this de- 

 partment. The emperors of the reigning house wear a court-girdle of 

 yellow silk adorned with four plaques of gold on which five-clawed 

 dragons are chased. The ornaments worn at the girdle are of lapis- 

 lazuli for the imperial functions in the Temple of Heaven whose cardinal 

 color is blue, of yellow jade for his services at the Altar of Earth, yellow 

 corresponding to the color of Earth, of red coral for the Altar of the Sun, 

 and of pale-white jade for the Altar of the Moon. The jade court- 

 girdles of the T'ang dynasty were preserved until recent times in Korea 

 and Annam. 





