Jade carving of two lions

This object is cut from openwork-carved jade, the stone the Chinese court valued above every other because it could be worked but never rushed. Jade does not bend; the carver removes everything that is not the object.

The lion cut is the point. Jade carving rewards a sure hand and punishes a second thought, so the object reads as a single decision rather than a sequence of them.

Jade carried the moral vocabulary of the Chinese court, the stone against which character itself was measured.

A object like this was made to outlast its owner by centuries, and it has. The openwork-carved jade still carries the chill it had when it left the Imperial dynasty bench.

Image © The Palace Museum. View the original in the Palace Museum Digital Collection.