Carved mountain: Sage King Yu Controlling the Flood (Da Yu zhishui yushan)

In 1750, China was at the height of its power and the most populous country in the world, strengthened by a century of decisive Manchu rule under the Qing dynasty...

The foregoing chapters have described in broad strokes the history of China’s jade-working industry from Neolithic times to the early centuries CE. This chapter is intended to serve as both an epilogue to the history charted in these chapters and a brief introduction to the subsequent two millennia, a story perhaps better told through the later jades in the Ernest B. and...