Lot Essay
Cf. a very closely related eight-piece jade book illustrated in Homage to Heaven, Homage to Earth, Chinese Treasure for the Royal Ontario Musuem, pl. 18, carved and gilt with the Prajnaparamita sutra, or 'Heart sutra' of Northern Buddhism.
Other jade books in famous collections have been published, cf. an example in the collection of the Forbidden City records "that in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of the Emperor Qianlong (1771) he honored his mother, the Empress Dowager Chong Qing, with a laudatory title to celebrate her eightieth birthday" Wan Yu et al., Daily Life in the Forbidden City, 1988, no. 19, where it is noted that according to Qing court regulations jade books and seals were presented to an empress, empress dowager or grand empress dowager, sometimes in lieu of gold book or seal, when she was appointed or honored with a laudatory title.
William Watson in Chinese Jade Books in the Chester Beatty Library, discusses and illustrates a group of fifteen jade books of various dates, and another, dated the first year of the reign of the Emperor Qianlong, was included in the exhibition, Treasures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, China Institute, 1979, Catalogue, no. 27. See also, a ten-tablet jade book recording the conferment of a post-humous title by the Emperor Shunzhi upon his great-great-grandmother, the consort of Giocangga, sold in our London Rooms, 12 December 1988, lot 241; and another ten-tablet jade book, dated 1778, made to commemorate the death of Qianlong's mother, sold in our New York Rooms, 3 June 1993, lot 56
Other jade books in famous collections have been published, cf. an example in the collection of the Forbidden City records "that in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of the Emperor Qianlong (1771) he honored his mother, the Empress Dowager Chong Qing, with a laudatory title to celebrate her eightieth birthday" Wan Yu et al., Daily Life in the Forbidden City, 1988, no. 19, where it is noted that according to Qing court regulations jade books and seals were presented to an empress, empress dowager or grand empress dowager, sometimes in lieu of gold book or seal, when she was appointed or honored with a laudatory title.
William Watson in Chinese Jade Books in the Chester Beatty Library, discusses and illustrates a group of fifteen jade books of various dates, and another, dated the first year of the reign of the Emperor Qianlong, was included in the exhibition, Treasures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, China Institute, 1979, Catalogue, no. 27. See also, a ten-tablet jade book recording the conferment of a post-humous title by the Emperor Shunzhi upon his great-great-grandmother, the consort of Giocangga, sold in our London Rooms, 12 December 1988, lot 241; and another ten-tablet jade book, dated 1778, made to commemorate the death of Qianlong's mother, sold in our New York Rooms, 3 June 1993, lot 56