Page 38 - Chinese Decorative Arts: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 55, no. 1 (Summer, 1997)

IVORY

Ivory, like jade, was carved by some of China's earliest cultures and
has continued to be turned into luxurious objects and ornaments to
the present day. Elephants were indigenous to China during the
Neolithic period and throughout the Shang and were the first source
for ivory. Indian elephants, subspecies of which were found in India
and Southeast Asia and in southwestern China until the seventh or
eighth century, were another source. Beginning in the Song dynasty,
trade brought tusks of the African elephant.
Ivory and bone were used to make decorative plaques in the
Hemudu culture that flourished in Province about B.C.
Zhejiang 5000
Handles, ornaments, and vessels-some in shapes common to the
better-known bronzes-were made from ivory throughout the

Shang and Zhou dynasties. Very little Chinese ivory is extant from
the second century B.C. to the seventh century A.D., although it
would have been readily available because of the close ties between
China and Southeast Asia. Musical instruments, examples of which
are preserved in the Shosoin (the imperial repository Nara, Japan,
in
founded by Empress K6myo in the eighth century), were among the
more elaborate objects fashioned from ivory during the Tang period.
From the ninth through the twelfth century ivory was used pri-

marily for decorative fittings on furnishings and often on imperial
carriages or other state vehicles.
Ivory carving flourished during the late Ming and early Qing
dynasties because of an increased supply and widespread patronage
of the decorative arts. The production of ivory figures-both
Christian themes for the European market and native religious images
for domestic consumption-was centered at the city of Zhangzhou,
Fujian Province, and a major component of this revival. Another
center was in Guangzhou (Canton), where craftsmen trained at the

Qing court were relocated for better access to the material. Figures
and other decorative objects, as well as more functional ones such as
brush holders and wrist rests, were made throughout the Qing
In
dynasty. addition, objects, including folding fans and the concen-
tric balls known as "devils'-work balls," were turned out in
Guangzhou for domestic consumption and for export to the West as
part of the vogue for chinoiserie that gripped Europe and America in
the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

DPL