7000 years of Chinese jade from the collection of Sir Joseph Hotung

Apollo, Nov, 2003 by Carol Michaelson, Margaret Sax

(1) J. Legge, edited with introduction and study guide by Ch'u Chai and Winberg Chai, Li Chi, Book of Rites: An Encyclopaedia of Ancient Ceremonial Usages, Religous Creeds and Social Institutions, 2 vols., New York, 1967, vol. II, p. 464.

(2) See Wenbo, 1993, no. 2, pp. 47-52, and R. Gump, Jade: Stone of Heaven, New York, 1962, pp. 172-75.

(3) Carol Michaelson, 'Some early Chinese jades in the Hotung Collection and the British Museum', APOLLO vol. CXLI, no. 396 (February 1995), pp. 11-15.

(4) J. Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995. I am greatly indebted to Professor Dame Jessica Rawson for the opportunity of working on the exhibition and catalogue in 1995, and for her inspiration and help in my work at the British Museum before and since that time.

(5) See Michaelson, op. cit.

(6) Eadem, 'Gilded dragons: Buried treasures from China's Golden Ages', APOLLO, vol. CL, no. 453 (November 1999), pp. 43-46.

(7) Ibid., pp. 43-46

(8) See Liu Yunhui, BeiZhou Sui, Tang Jingyi Yuqi, Chongqing, 2000, p. 32; see also Zhou Xun and Gao Chunming, 5000 Years of Chinese Costumes, San Francisco, 1987, p. 121.

(9) See Rawson, op, cit., pp. 79-85.

(10) Carol Michaelson, Gilded dragons: Buried treasure from China's Golden Ages, exh. cat., British Museum, pp. 104-29, no. 70.

(11) Jiro Harada, Catalogue of Treasures in the Imperial repository, Tokyo, 1932, plate L111.

(12) See J. Rawson (ed.), The British Museum Book of Chinese Art, London, 1992, p. 64.

(13) See Rawson, op. cit., p. 399; in the new exhibition, an archaic bronze prototype of the same shape is shown alongside the Qing dynasty vessel.

(14) See F. Ward, 'Jade: Stories of heaven', Natiotlal Geographic Magazine, vol. CLXXII, no. 3 (September 1987), p. 294; and Craig Clunas in Zhang Hong Xing, The Qianlong Emperor: Treasures from the Forbidden City, exh. cat., National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2002, preface, p. 14.

(15) Rawson, op cit., pp. 406-409.

(16) Wolfram Eberhard, A dictionary of Chinese Symbols: Hidden Symbols in Chinese Life and Thought, London and New York, 1986, pp. 91-93.

(17) Rawson, op. cit., p. 404.

(18) See n. 3 above.

(19) Sidney Howard Hansford, Chinese Jade Carving, London and Bradford, 1950.

(20) E-Tu Zen Sun and Shiou-Chuan Sun, Chinese Technology in the Seventeenth Century, University Park, PA, and London, 1996, p 306, fig. 18-7.

Carol Michaelson is an Assistant Keeper in the Department of Asia at the British Museum. Her research interests include Chinese jades and early Chinese material. She is currently co-ordinating the digitisation of the Department's Dunhuang and related material collected by Sir Marc Aurel Stein, a project funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation. She was responsible for the Selwyn and Ellie Alleyne Gallery of Chinese Jade, which opened in November 2002. Currently she is writing a book on Chinese jade, and working with the British Museum's scientific research department on a project analysing ancient lapidary skills related to jade working.

Margaret Sax is a special assistant in the Department of Conservation, Documentation and Science at the British Museum. She has specialised for many years in research into ancient lapidary techniques and is now focussing on the carving of Chinese jade.