Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China, 1500-1800

Six: Artifacts of Authentication: People Making Texts Making Things in Ming-Qing China

180 “Lost and misguided in the pursuit of things,” asked one collector in sixteenth-century China, “Who knows what is right?”1 Feng Fang 豐坊 (1493–1566) was lamenting his contemporaries’ blind rush after the antiques , books, artworks, and other artifacts that were available in greater numbers and to more people, and in many cases at higher prices, than ever before. The last century of the Ming (1368–1644) and the first decades of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) have been recognized as a time of great social, cultural and economic change, with shifts in the relationships between people and things transforming relationships among people . Although these developments were complex and sometimes contradictory , a general picture has emerged of an increasingly commercialized economy with many new sources of wealth and greater opportunities to purchase the trappings of culture, including some formerly accessible only to a privileged few. Both local elites and officials expressed dismay at these developments but could neither control nor stop them.2 Many, especially in prosperous regions such as the Yangzi Delta (Jiangnan 江 南), believed that economic change had transformed their world and that the rising dominance of “things” threatened the social and moral order. Even for those who embraced it, the market brought distrust and uncertainty along with its ever-changing flow of goods. Things could be acquired everywhere, but caveat emptor: there were fake jewels, counterfeit drugs, loaded scales, and debased currency. Few products, however, were perceived as more unreliable than cultural artifacts. Books, paintings , calligraphy, curios—every sort of antique and collectible—were liSix Artifacts of Authentication: People Making Texts Making Things in Ming-Qing China Bruce Rusk Artifacts of Authentication 181 able to fakery. What was not forged might be mislabeled, poorly copied, or ill-gotten. The language of connoisseurship was one way to address these worries . Written or oral statements affirmed or denied particular qualities of things: This piece is old (or only looks that way); that object was (or wasn’t really) made, or owned, by a famous person. Every culture asks such questions about its artifacts, producing answers that can include or exclude parts of the tradition by deeming them “authentic” or “inauthentic .” This essay examines how Chinese writers between roughly 1500 and 1700 dealt with such questions as they applied to objects that had been passed down or discovered, asking who made the judgments, on what basis, and to what ends. I examine three cases of authentication, each involving artifacts purportedly of historic significance: the seal of the first emperor, a stele inscription by the sage-king Yu 禹, and the ritual bronze vessels of the Xuande 宣德 (1426–35) court. These cases help identify the types of actors involved, the sorts of documents they produced, and some of their methods, assumptions, and goals. In all these instances, the assessment of antiquities was based on and expressed in written texts, a cumulative process by which a discourse of antiquarianism perpetuates itself. Since the texts themselves were often as unreliable as the artifacts, many of the issues raised by the process of authenticating objects, such as establishing reliable provenance and guarding against deception, applied as much to the supporting documents as to the antiques. Feng Fang, the writer who deplored his peers’ mindless “pursuit of things,” was certainly not wrong to worry. He was an insider in the art and book market, famous especially as an expert of calligraphy, and as an authenticator he tried to stem the flood of new and dubious materials. But he also led this market on, misguiding fellow collectors and the reading public with some of the most daring forgeries in Chinese history. Creating fake artifacts was of course one way to manipulate this market, but as we will see Feng Fang also intervened more indirectly, creating documents that gave spurious provenance or meaning to existing artifacts. Forged texts could in turn become the basis for forged artifacts, a cycle that links collecting, scholarship, and the world of the artisans who also helped fabricate the past. the Qin Seal In the seventh lunar month of the thirteenth year of the Hongzhi 弘 治 reign (1500), a runner arrived at court in Beijing. He brought from 182 Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China Xi’an 西安, 920 kilometers to the southwest, a jade seal and a memorial from two officials, Yang Jing 楊敬, Commander of the Regional Military Commission, and Xiong Chong 熊翀 (jinshi 1469), Grand Coordinator of Shaanxi Province: At...