Confucius (551-479 BC) praised jade as 'the embodiment of virtue'. Excavations in China since the 1970s have shed much light on the use and production of jade in neolithic and early dynastic periods. Excavated jade artefacts dating from the seventh to seventeenth centuries are rare, so it is particularly valuable that a number of specimens have been unearthed from tombs and pagoda foundations during the past two decades, thus allowing heirloom jades to be compared with these excavated examples and correctly dated. This book is a timely reassessment of what is known about Chinese jade, which has been a central element of Chinese material culture for an uninterrupted span of seven thousand years, and will appeal to collectors and newcomers to the subject alike.

Photographer(s): Ian Thomas