Milestones of millennia

A new exhibition at the Palace Museum provides a panoramic view of the role played by jade in 5,000 years of Chinese culture, Wang Kaihao reports.

In 1748, the 37-year-old Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) wrote an ode extolling the exquisite beauty of a fan-shaped jade artifact he owned, huang, after it was presented to him at the royal palace, the Forbidden City.

In his poem, the emperor attributed the antique to the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), but its exact age remained a mystery to him. In the following decades, many similar jade pieces were presented to him, and the emperor was so fond of holding them that they developed their own unique patina. He even added gold and enamel to the pieces for embellishment.