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Plate 27.2 Pair of gold pillow ends inlaid with semi-precious stones, Xuande period, 1426–35, Beijing or Nanjing. Gold, rubies, turquoise
            and other precious and semi-precious stones, height 14.47cm, width 18cm each. British Museum, London, 1949,1213.1-2

            examples outside China, such as a gem-encrusted gold   included as loose stones. It is a reasonable presumption that
            toothpick case in the Rietberg Museum, Zurich (Pl. 27.1) or   most if not all of these items were gifts to the prince from the
            a pair of pillow ends in the British Museum (Pl. 27.2), have   central imperial courts, and manufactured in imperial
            lacked a context in which to understand them, excavated as   workshops in Nanjing or Beijing. None of the stones has been
            they were in the early 20th century in uncontrolled   cut, rather they are polished only, but they include some
            conditions. Indeed, the latter objects were for many years
            catalogued and displayed as ornamental plaques for sewing   Plate 27.3 Group of gold and gem-encrusted hairpins, excavated
                                                               from the tomb of Zhu Zhanji, Prince Zhuang of Liang (1411–41), and
            on clothing, a sort of luxury rank badge, and their true   of Lady Wei (d. 1451) at Zhongxiang, Hubei province, c. 1403–51,
            function as ornamental pillow ends has only recently been   Nanjing or Beijing. Gold, jade, precious and semi-precious stones,
            recognised. But in more recent years significant excavations   maximum length 20.5cm. Hubei Provincial Museum
            in China have greatly enhanced our understanding of the
            types, functions and range of precious metal objects in the
            early Ming, and many aristocratic tombs have yielded up
            material of this type.  Now, through a closer examination of
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            the significant quantity of such material excavated from the
            tomb of Prince Zhuang of Liang 梁莊王 (1411–41) at
            Zhongxiang in Hubei province, and by reading that
            material in the light of a survey (necessarily sketchy) of its
            historical and cultural context, it is possible to make the
            preliminary claim, which it is hoped will be tested through
            further research, for the importance of such objects in Ming
            courtly life. This was an importance out of all proportion to
            their quantity, indeed one which conversely is derived from
            their very rarity.
               It was not just rhetorically, or in verse, that gems were
            sought out by the maritime voyages of the Yongle (1403–24)
            and Xuande (1426–35) reigns. A eunuch memorial of 1458
            claims that ‘the stock [of gems brought back by Zheng He] is
            close to exhaustion’, suggesting that it was sufficient for
            courtly needs through the first half of the 15th century,
            which encompassed the short lifetime of Prince Zhuang of
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            Liang.  It is worth therefore taking a closer look at exactly
            what stones of which types are found in this extraordinary
            complex of objects (Pl. 27.3). The tomb of Zhu Zhanji
            朱瞻垍, ninth son of the Hongxi emperor (r. 1425), first and
            last Prince of Liang, contains 111 items inlaid with some 18
            different types of precious stones, numbering 772 stones in
            all; it is slightly unclear from the excavation report whether
            this figure also includes the 21 loose gems (Pl. 27.4) which
            may have come adrift from their settings (the tomb itself was
            flooded centuries ago), or which may simply have been



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