Introduction

Temporary Exhibition / S203

The area where Islam is the predominant religion is quite vast, stretching from Central, South, and West Asia to Eastern Europe. However, due to the distribution of the raw jade and the influence from Chinese culture, it was only from the 14th century to the early 19th century that various levels of jade art emerged there. What art historians today commonly refer to as “Islamic jade” was produced during that period in four powerful empires or kingdoms existing in this region. These four political entities were: (1) the Timurid Empire (1370-1506), in Central and West Asia; (2) the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922), in West Asia and East Europe; (3) the Safavid dynasty (1501-1736) in West Asia; and (4) the Mughal Empire (1526-1857) in South Asia.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, works of Islamic jade were few, and their forms were influenced by works in metal and ceramic; they had not yet developed a definite style. In the first half of the 17th century, however, the ruler of the Mughal Empire, Shah Jahan (r. 1627-1658) recruited European and Persian craftsmen who went on to blend the artistic essence of Europe, China, Central Asia, and India. Their work frequently used the decorative motifs of flowers and leaves, gourds and fruits, or horses and rams’ heads, thereby taking the cold, hard medium of jade and imbuing it with a powerful, natural vitality. It was then that the distinctive style of Islamic jade was formed.

Under the influence of classic Mughal jade, other regional states in India also developed jade art that blended Mughal and local styles. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire, which did not border the Mughal Empire but had frequent cultural interaction with it, also began producing jade objects with flower and leaf patterns in low relief. Many of the jade objects from the three regions listed above were carved in exquisitely fine detail, and some were even studded with gold and gems.

In the second half of the 18th century, the Qianlong emperor brought the eastern end of Central Asia into China’s territory and called it Xinjiang, i.e., “the New Territory.” A steady stream of exquisite Islamic jade then entered the Forbidden City in the form of tribute to the Great Qing Empire, and the Qianlong emperor was completely dazzled by it. He wrote essays examining where it had all come from, and he established that it had come from a place called “Hindustan.” He wrote poems praising these objects for their “immortal craft” or “demonic craft.”

Imperial favor led to intense competition between Uygur and Han jade craftsmen who sought to earn huge profits through the making of imitations. Close exchanges also caused jade craftsmen in China and India to learn each other’s exquisite designs, and they went on to create new artistic achievements.

Part 1

The Eastward Transmission—the Imperial Frontier-expanding Enterprise

The Manchus arose “beyond the pass” in China’s northeast, and before they “entered the pass” to take control of China in 1644, they had already united the various Mongol tribes in the southern part of the Gobi Desert through conquest and marriage connections. They had also established good relations with the Khalka Mongols in the northern Gobi and the Oirat Mongols in the western Gobi. However, after the Manchus entered the pass, one branch of the Oirat Mongals, the Dzungars, rose up and, under the leadership of Galdan (1644-1697), took control of the areas to the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains. Galdan took the title of “Khan” and began attacking the northern and southern Gobi regions. To protect their territory and pacify the border regions, the Qing court waged a struggle against Galdan and his successors that lasted through much of the reigns of the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong emperors. Finally, in 1757, the 22nd year of the Qianlong emperor’s reign, the Qing forces pacified Dzungaria, and two years later (1759) they also defeated the Muslim Uygurs who lived on the south side of the Tianshan Mountains and who were led by the brothers Khoja Burhan al-Din (or in Manchu, Buranidun) and Khoja Khan (Hojijan). When the Qing court finally gained control the northern and southern sides of the Tianshan range, this new region was called Xinjiang, the “new territory.” China’s territorial map thus stretched westward all the way to Kashgar, in the heart of Central Asia.

After this, both the smooth, relatively unornamented jade vessels of Central Asia and the more exquisite jade vessels of South and West Asia, which featured decorative flower and leaf patterns in low relief, were brought east into Xinjiang by traveling merchants. These objects were then offered to the emperor as tribute by the Uygur leaders or by Qing officials stationed in Xinjiang. The Qianlong emperor studied the jade objects and wrote essays verifying that they had come from “Hindustan” in northern India. By this time a steady stream of these “Hindustan jades” were crossing the Kunlun Mountains and being transported to the Qing palace.

Part 2

Breathtaking Splendor—Imperial Appreciation

Although the Islamic jade coming into China did not all originate from the same place, if we take stock of genuine objects bearing the Qianlong emperor’s poetic inscriptions and analyze the content of these poems, we can tell that the objects that “bedazzled” the emperor most of all were the top-grade classic jade vessels of the Mughal Empire. These included bowls in the shape of flowers, two-handled bowls, and half gourd-shaped cups.

Pure, flawless, classically elegant—such terms are typical for these kinds of objects. However, what the Qianlong emperor appreciated even more about them were their lustre, feel, and formal harmoniousness. Their flower and leaf decorations seemed at first glance to be many-layered, but if you rub them with your finger, they are still quite smooth. Although jade itself is very hard and cold as a material, it was made to express lifelike, organic forms from the natural world.

The emperor thought that Hindustan jades were unparalleled on account of their skillful thinness, transparency, and lightness. His first look at such work came in 1768, when he received a pair of jade plates with the characteristic low-relief flower and leaf decorations. Perhaps on the basis of some mistaken information provided to him by a Yarkand official, the Qianlong emperor from that time onward always believed that the Hindustan jades had been polished with water. Transported by amazement, he praised their beauty as representing “immortal craft” or “demonic craft.”

This part will show a selection of some of the best items together with the poems that the emperor composed for them. Take a good look at how this hardworking, territory-expanding, strategically-minded ruler was completely bowled over by the artistic style presided over by the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan.

Part 3

Distant Domains—Styles and Characteristics

The Islamic jade in the National Palace Museum collection comes from Central, South, and West Asia, even from as far as Eastern Europe.

Central Asia starts from the Caspian Sea in the west and stretches,to Xinjiang. The Kunlun Mountains, with their rich jade deposits, cross the southern part of Xinjiang, and it is in the rivers that flow down their northern slopes, in the Khotan region, where most of it is gathered. Consequently, the art of jade-carving has long been practiced in this region.

The Mughal Empire of South Asia was centered in northern India, and at its height its territory extended into Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Deccan Plateau in central India. During the reign of Shah Jahan, the art of jade-carving reached its highest peak in the imperial workshops. This is still the most plentiful type of Islamic jade preserved today, as well as the best in terms of quality.

Although Shah Jahan’s successor, Aurangzeb, had little interest in art, other regional states in India outside of his empire had their own jade workshops, which produced works blending the Mughal style with their own local styles. They even mixed in stylistic elements from Turkey and China. The royal house of the Ottoman Empire, which stretched across West Asia and Eastern Europe, was Turkic in origin and closely related to the Mughal Empire royal house. The Ottoman rulers originally preferred dark green jade objects that were heavily inlaid with gold wire and gemstones, but probably through the influence of Mughal jades, after the 17th century the Ottoman Empire also produced light-colored jade objects with flower and leaf patterns in low relief, though the style of the decorative patterns was somewhat stiffer. However, not many of these jades have been preserved.

Central Asian jades

Central Asia refers to the central region of the Eurasian land mass. Since most of Central Asia is desert or steppe, many nomadic tribes in this region, for thousands of years, fought with one another for supremacy. The strongest among them were the Mongols and the Turks, and to this day they are still dominant in Central Asia. From written records we know that the production of work in jade in Central Asia began in the 5th century.

After the Mongol Empire disintegrated in the late 14th century, Timur, who had both Mongol and Turkic bloodlines, made Samarkand his capital and established the Timurid Empire (1370-1506). The main jade-producing region, Khotan, sometimes lay within the empire’s territory, sometimes within the territory of the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, with which it had close relations.

In the mid 18th century, the Great Qing Empire annexed the Dzungar Khanate and the Muslim region and called them Xinjiang, the “new territory.” Afterward, the Muslim region presented a steady stream of jade objects as tribute. Some of these, once they were taken into the palace, were inscribed with the emperor’s poems and placed in important palace halls. However, even more of these were placed in “Muslim wrappers” and put into storage—stacked in a small room on the north side of Duanning Palace in the Forbidden City. Most of these are smooth and unadorned bowls and plates, and their bases make them clearly unlike Chinese bowls and plates. Some of these have thick walls and a matte finish, and the workmanship is crude; they also bear the scars from long-term use.

South Asia: Classic Mughal jades

1In 1506, the weakened Timurid Empire was destroyed by the Uzbeks. In 1526, a sixth-generation descendant of Timur, Babur, led his army into India, where he established the Mughal Empire. On his mother’s side, he was a descendant of Genghis Khan--the name “Mughal” is only an Indian transliteration of “Mongol.”

In the 17th century, when the Mughal Empire’s power reached its height, its territory spanned present-day India, Pakistan, and the eastern part of Afghanistan. Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) and his son Shah Jahan strongly encouraged and supported artistic work. Shah Jahan recruited artists and craftsmen from far and wide, and as a result the imperial workshops during his reign blended the traditions of China, Central Asia, India, and Europe to create a new style. During this period, the decorative motifs of jade objects were derived mostly from nature: flowers and leaves, gourds, rams’ heads, horses’ heads, and so on. The craftsmen were able to take cold, hard, durable raw jade and use it to depict the soft pliancy of leaves and flowers, the bountifulness of gourds, and the spirited, fiery nature of animals.

Most of the Mughal jades are food-related utensils, like bowls, cups, plates, ladles, pots, vases, containers, boxes, and so on, but there are also a small number of miscellaneous items like ink-water bottles, knife and dagger handles, gunpowder container, mirror backs, Qur’an stands, crutches, small personal adornment items, rings, and so on.

South Asia: Non-Mughal Indian jades

What we call “Non-Mughal Indian jades” may be divided into two main categories: The first category includes jades produced on the Indian peninsula in areas outside the territory of the Mughal Empire, such as the local governments on the Deccan Plateau, which developed their own jade-carving art under Mughal Empire influence. However, these jade carvings are either relatively small, or the ornamentation is relatively dense and tidy, or two-handled objects become single-handled objects, or the vessels are out of proportion, and so on. Most of the decorative motifs on Mughal jades are of flowers that grow on land, such as clematis and anemone, but the decorative motifs on jades produced in the workshops of Indian regional states often consist of realistic depictions of lotuses or passion flowers, though with exaggerated stamens and pistils.

The second category includes jades designed to imitate those made in Turkey or China. The former may have one after another bouquet of flowers and leaves arrayed in an “open window” structure; the latter may have leaves and stems in a circle around the base of the vessel and may even imitate the shape of the ancient Chinese bronze jue cup. However, a poppy flower still rises from the base, with the four broad, beautiful petals embraced by the vessel walls and three feet.

West Asia to East Europe: Ottoman jades

Since the Mongol tribes had taken control of the main basins in Northeast Asia, the Turkic tribes moved from Central to West Asia, made West Asia their base, and extended themselves into Eastern Europe. They established the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922), which reached into Europe, Asia, and Africa when its power was at its height. Later on, its territory gradually shrank until it developed into the present-day Republic of Turkey.

In other words, the ancestors of the ruling houses of both the Ottoman and Mughal Empires had come from Central Asia—they were more or less like cousins. Once you understand their historical background, you can also understand why Turkey and India, which are far apart geographically, developed similar forms of jade art.

Through the influence from the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman Empire during the 17th century developed light-colored jade vessels with flower and leaf decorative patterns that were also not inlaid with gold thread and gemstones. Not many such objects have been preserved, but they also have their unique style. Although the jade carving is neatly done, with symmetrical leaf and flower patterns, the patterns are comparatively stiff. Narrow, unevenly edged acanthus leaves, for example, become broad and smooth-edged. The leaf and flower decorations around the belly of a vessel often are arrayed in a continuous “open window” pattern. Most of the handles hang down vertically or are level. Occasionally one sees pod-shaped bases. In addition, in Ottoman jades, each petal or leaf is ground into a round or oval-shaped recess, i.e., they are made with the “shallow scooping technique,” which creates the special effects of thinness, transparency, and lightness.

Part 4

Aesthetics—Usage and Appreciation

Most Islamic jade serves a practical purpose, which is quite different from China’s jade culture, which goes back many thousands of years.

First of all, in the Islamic cultural sphere, jade objects have never been used in rites to communicate with spirits or ancestors. Next, although beautiful jade objects in Islamic culture do serve to highlight the high social status of the owner, they were never specially formed “ritual objects” (like the jade gui of the Zhou or the jade belts of the Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties) that the possessor was strictly required to own in order to fulfill a governmental role.

In Islamic culture, jade objects are the ultimate in lifestyle aesthetics. The jade objects have many practical functions: they can be used to serve food, they can be parts of water pipes, betel nut containers, fly-whisks, and toiletry items like mirrors and combs.

Islamic jade has two basic decorative styles. The first is multilayered flower and leaf patterns carved in low relief, which give the work a sense of harmoniousness and gentle elegance. The other is inlaid gold and gemstones, which create a sense of great luxury and wealth. One question worth pondering is: Why did the jade-carvers put so much effort into carving the bases of the objects, which are usually invisible to the viewer? Perhaps it is the case that during a banquet, when the host proudly emptied his two-handled bowl or gourd-shaped cup before his assembled guests, they would catch a glimpse of the beautifully carved base. It would please the eye and let the host flaunt his wealth at the same time.

The uses of elegant things

This gallery is filled with a wide variety of jade objects from Central, South, West Asia to East Europe—and we can say it all makes a dazzling display. But the greatest number and the richest in object type are the jades from the Mughal Empire and other places in India. These include food containers, practical, miscellaneous items for daily use, objects with a religious or ritual use, weapons, and so on.

The function of many of these items, like the bowls, cups, containers, and so on, may be seen at a glance. However, there are other items whose functions most people would not be able to figure out right away because of cultural differences or the changing times—like the gunpowder container used to load a rifle, the katar dagger, and the special stand used to hold the Qur’an during prayer.

Layers of Flowers and Leaves

Flower and leaf patterns are the main form of ornamentation on Islamic jade. We can easily distinguish the various plants through observation, rubbings, and illustrated botanical dictionaries. The flowers used in the decorative patterns include the lotus, poppy, rose, hollyhock, lily, narcissus, and dianthus; the leaves include the acanthus, pteridaceae , and poaceae. The most common decorative techniques are low relief carving and inlays of metal and precious stones. The former requires a greater level of refined craftsmanship than the latter.

The workers usually choose different kinds of flowers for the different parts of a jade object—the inner surface, outer surface, the handle, and the base—and they may be fully open flowers, flowers still in bud, or in bouquets with stems and leaves. These are further combined with long and short acanthus leaves. When all of these elements are carved in low relief over the surface of an object, they make it even more beautiful and elegant. It acquires a kind of visual rhythm.

“Layered flowers and leaves” describes a clever design by Mughal jade-carvers that gradually spread throughout India. As illustrated, the entire body of the vessel is carved into an open, eight-petaled flower. Then on the base a flattened poppy flower is carved in low relief, with a fully open chrysanthemum flower pressed over that. Around the lower part of the belly of the vessel there is a ring of short acanthus leaves, but on each of the two opposing sides there is one long acanthus leaf that extends upward from the ring of short leaves to the rim, where it curls back and forms a handle. Therefore, in this elegant design there are three layers of flowers and two layers of acanthus leaves.

Gold and Gemstone Inlays

In both India and Turkey, people liked to have their jades decorated with all kinds of colorful inlays. Turkish artisans wove gold thread into a mesh that served as a kind of base upon which various inlays of gemstones, glass, or other materials were set. However, this museum does not have any such Turkish jades in its collection. As for the Indian artisans, they directly set the inlays of gold, gems, glass, jade, and shell into the surface of the jade. They used a wide variety of inlay techniques.

Indian artisans often made use of the malleability of gold and silver. They would take gold filigree thread or pieces of silver and pound or press them into grooves that also had tiny holes drilled into the sides. After the metal filled the groove, it also formed one after another tiny rivet. The highest-quality items used by the nobility had rubies or red spinels and emeralds set in gold—such materials were immediately indicative of elegance and high status.

Sometimes the Indian artisans directly applied pieces of gold foil around an inlaid object; this is called the “gold foil ring appliqué technique.” Or, if they used the “paste and gold foil technique,” they would first put a yellow adhesive into the groove and then apply gold foil to the adhesive. Of course, they could also directly glue a decorative motif cut from gold foil onto the surface of the vessel and then cover it with a layer of transparent paste—this was the “gold foil flower technique.” Alternatively, they might brush on some decorations with gold pigment and fix it with paste—the “gold paste painting technique.” If they used this together with red and green pigments in order to make decorations, it will look very much like red and green gemstones set in golden filigree. This “painting technique” was probably for the narcissistic buyers that did not have enough money for the real thing.

Part 5

Influences—The Sparks of Colliding Civilizations

After Xinjiang became part of the Qing territory in 1759, its southern part, then known as the Muslim Region, became a place where jades from India, Turkey, and elsewhere were shipped east to China and often presented as tribute to the Qing palace. The more exquisite “Muslim objects” offered as tribute from Xinjiang would sometimes be inscribed with one of the emperor’s poems, have special brocade boxes or wooden stands made for them, and placed in one of the important palace buildings in the Forbidden City. The others were put in “Muslim wrappers” made of cotton and stacked in a small storeroom on the north side of Duanning Palace in the Forbidden City.

Since the Qianlong emperor was so passionate about “Hindustan jades,” everyone from Uygur leaders to officials stationed in Xinjiang and officials in the central government were presenting him with jade things in the “Hindustan” style. Naturally, this helped give rise to a kind of “Islamic fashion” in jade carving, which included fakes created deliberately to make a profit and creative “original” works that blended styles from all over.

Since there were so many Islamic-style jades in the Qing palace, how do we tell the “fakes” from creative “originals”?

If the imitation is not skillfully done, if an object supposedly from Hindustan shows all kinds of telltale signs of a different origin, and if it was wrapped in a “Muslim wrapper” and deposited in the little storeroom—such things prove that it is a “fake” presented as tribute from the Muslim Regions during the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns.

As for the various Chinese-style jades with a “Hindustan” stylistic flavor, which were placed in almost every palace building, we think these may be classed as creative “originals” from the late 18th to early 19th century.

Nearly indistinguishable imitations

In 1778, a Uygur official revealed a serious case of corruption committed by a top Qing official stationed in Yarkand named Gao Pu. Gao Pu not only had privately taken charge of most of the raw jade production but had also hired jade-carvers from southern China, including one named Zhou Xingruo, to work the raw jade right in his office into fakes. These imitation jades were probably made to fill out the required number of tribute jades.

In the Beijing Palace Museum, however, we may also find some exquisite, top-drawer imitations that are inscribed with imperial poems dated 1778 and 1779. The Qianlong emperor regarded them as genuine, exquisite, water-polished Hindustan jades. Were these “top-drawer imitations” the ones produced by the southern Chinese jade-carvers in Gao Pu’s office? They may have been sent out to the palace before the corruption case was exposed, so they had not been seized as evidence.

This museum also has a number of “fakes” in Muslim wrappers, but they do not bear any inscriptions of imperial poetry. The cup with gourd ridges and a ram’s head that is on display here, for example, has an ungainly shape. Its lines are stiff, and even the ram’s eyes look more like those of a human being.

Capturing the essence—new fashions

Would you like to tell which items are fakes, created deliberately to fool people, and which are creative originals that combine the best from various artistic traditions? There are no simple, easy standards to go by here, but certainly one of the standards would be to consider how the object was used. To drink tea from a lidded bowl or burn sandalwood incense in a burner with matching vase and box—those were surely never Indian or Turkish customs!

Thus we see here that an extremely thin, transparent passion flower pattern is ground into the walls of a lidded bowl. The two handles of the incense burner are carved into the shapes of two leaves holding open flowers, and next to them one sees the drooping flower buds one might expect in a Hindustan jade—but there are also two free rings on the handle, which is a classic Chinese feature. This is the kind of work we can class as a creative “original” blending stylistic elements from far and wide.

Of course, the “cup with ram’s head and gourd ridges” is a distinctly Mughal vessel form. Chinese jade-carvers chose this foreign shape but let the old Chinese-style goat look straight at the viewer, and the flower on the base has been changed into the hibiscus familiar to Chinese people. The Mughal artistic elements have been “domesticated” by the Chinese jade-carvers, and the sides of the cup have low relief carvings of classic Chinese patterns, such as the taiji, cloud-scrolls, the double happiness character, and so on. Besides the two rams carved in relief on the vessel surface, there is the ram’s head at the handle, which makes the auspicious motif of “three goats bring good fortune.”

In addition, one very often sees red spinels stuck directly into the centers of each of the open flowers, without any gold filigree around them, in jades of this kind. In sum, combining the best features of Islamic jade with traditional Chinese jade in a single object was the most popular, “culturally creative” thing to do with jade in the late Qing.