XII. JADE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



Marvellous works of jade were turned out during the K'ang-hi and 

 K'ien-lung periods, many directly inspired by these emperors themselves 

 and engraved with poems written by them, with their seals appended. 



As a rule, the style of the ancients was followed. This is expressly 

 testified by seals as, e. g., Ta Ts'ing K'ien-lung fang ku, "Reign of K'ien- 

 lung of the Great Ts'ing dynasty, imitating antiquity or the antique 

 style" (Bishop, Vol. II, p. 232). This does not always mean that the 

 work in question is altogether a faithful reproduction of an antique, 

 but only that the style and the spirit in the approved subject handed 

 down from times of old have been preserved. 



In the eighteenth century, jade bowlders were brought from Khotan 

 to Peking, as we gather e. g. from an interesting poem composed by the 

 Emperor K'ien-lung in 1774 and engraved on the bottom of a magnifi- 

 cent fish-bowl of nephrite; the poem opens with the words, "The colossal 

 block was brought as a tributary offering from Khotan (Ho-tien), to 

 be fashioned by skilful hands into a wing (name of a type of vessel) - 

 shaped bowl" (Bishop, Vol. II, p. 232). From another imperial poem 

 of the same date, we learn that bright pure jade was brought from the 

 Yii-lung Valley, the Chinese name of the Yurungkash River in Turkistan 

 which produces jade (Ibid., p. 244). 1 



The Bishop collection, now in the Metropolitan Museum of New 

 York, was very fortunate in securing a number of pieces originating 

 from the Imperial Summer-Palace destroyed by Lord Elgin in i860. 

 Most of these were manufactured in the court-atelier for imperial use 

 only and rank among works of the highest perfection which human skill 

 may reach. Though we cannot boast of any such palace pieces, oufl 

 collection is fairly representative of that memorable period in soma 

 fine and choice specimens all coming from the possession of families of 

 high standing in Si-ngan fu and San-yuan of Shensi Province. It is 

 thoroughly characteristic of those art-treasures amassed by the high 

 official and of the taste displayed by him in the decoration of his private 

 residence. These two sections in the Bishop collection and in our o 

 felicitously supplement each other; the one is not rendered superfluo 

 by the other, and serious students should apply themselves to the stu 

 of both. 



ait 



5 



1 Occasionally, a nephrite bowl came also from India, as testified in a poem of the 

 Emperor of the year 1770 engraved in a bowl of chrysanthemum shape (Ibid., Vc 

 II, p. 250). 



324 



