This object is cut from dark green (bian) 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 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.
Han objects carried the vocabulary of an empire learning to picture its own order in bronze and jade.
A object like this was made to outlast its owner by centuries, and it has. The dark green (bian) jade still carries the chill it had when it left the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) bench.
Object details
| Name | Jasper Eighteen Arhats (碧玉十八罗汉) |
|---|---|
| Artefact no. | 故00101304 |
| Technique | Dark green (bian) jade (碧玉) |
| Period | Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) |
| Collection | The Palace Museum, Beijing |
| Source | Palace Museum Digital Collection (数字文物库) |
Image © The Palace Museum. View the original in the Palace Museum Digital Collection.