AN IMPERIAL KHOTAN-GREEN JADE 'DRAGON' SEAL WITH THE POSTHUMOUS TITLE OF THE EMPRESS DOWAGER XIAOZHUANG QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG PERIOD

the substantial stone well worked of square section, surmounted by a pair of addorsed dragons superbly depicted grounding their claws on the top of the seal, each powerfully rendered in openwork with a slightly agape mouth below flaring nostrils and flanked by long curling whiskers, the tightly intertwined scaly bodies of the mythical beasts detailed with bosses and finely incised flowing mane, the seal face worked with a border enclosing a twenty-one-character inscription in seal script reading Xiaozhuang renxuan chengxian gongyi zhide chunhui yitian qisheng wen huanghou zhi bao ('The Treasure of the Xiaozhuang Dowager Empress [her posthumous title bestowed by the Kangxi Emperor]'), followed by an inscription in Manchu script, the centre of the finial pierced through with an aperture, the stone of a deep fern-green colour mottled with white and dark inclusions

Collection of William Douglas McHugh (1859-1923), a United States District Judge appointed by President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908).

The Green Jade Seal of the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang
Guo Fuxiang

Among the many types of imperial seals, there was one type that could not be used to impress on documents, books, or works of art. Indeed, these seals were not even the possessions of emperors and empresses during their lifetimes, but were assigned to them only after their deaths. They are known as yibao, or posthumous seals. An example is the jade seal of the important mid-Qing political figure Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang, currently being offered at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. This green jade seal has a finial worked in the form of entwined dragons. The seal face is 12.6 cm long on each side. The seal text is in four lines of regular-script Manchu and three columns of seal-script Chinese, announcing the full posthumous title of the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang. The details of Qing court rituals of ancestral worship and rules of posthumous naming presented below will help us understand this object better.

A posthumous seal was an object created for a reigning emperor to refer to preceding emperors and empresses, and thus a direct product of the system of ancestral temples and posthumous naming in ancient China. Emperors, rulers of states, nobles and officials alike built temples in which they worshipped their ancestors, who were represented by spirit tablets, symbolic clothing and other means. Each worshipped ancestor had a title, that is the posthumous name, generally laudatory and eulogising his or her deeds and virtues in life. The system of posthumous naming in China has a very long history, having already been well established during the time of the Zhou Dynasty. Before then, only the founding ruler of a state had the right to have a posthumous title, and everyone else had the same name in life as in death. During the Zhou dynasty, posthumous titles became widespread: “In life [one] had a name (ming), and in death a posthumous title (yi). Names are to identify the living, posthumous titles the dead.” As ritual systems became more sophisticated, posthumous naming also evolved, ultimately leading to the worship of deceased rulers and patriarchs with the same diligence as if they were alive, and to the widespread adoption of posthumous names across different strata of society. In Chinese history, the worship and posthumous naming of emperors and empresses were an important component of court rules governed by explicit and strict rules. Posthumous imperial seals were an important class of artefacts created for these ritual activities.

Let us first consider the Qing rules of posthumous titles for emperors and empresses.

The Qing use of posthumous titles began with Hong Taiji. In the first year of the Chongde reign (1636), Hong Taiji adopted the title of Taizong and posthumously canonised his great-great-great-grandfather King Ze, his great-great-grandfather King Qing, his great-grandfather King Chang, his grandfather King Fu, and Nurhaci, the founding emperor of the Qing dynasty, Taizong Wuhuangdi, and Nurhaci’s empress Xiaozi Wuhuanghou.¹ The posthumous titles of Qing emperors and empresses followed fixed formats. An emperor’s posthumous title was generally a concatenation of his temple name, a laudatory euology and a posthumous title proper; the Qianlong Emperor’s, for example, was Gaozong fatian longyun zhicheng xianjue tiyuan liji fuwen fenwu qinming xiaoci shensheng chunhuangdi, in which Gaozong is his temple name, chun [pure] is his posthumous title, and the phrase between them a laudatory eulogy in praise of his valour, virtue, wisdom, and cultivation. In general, a posthumous title contained ten such terms for a total of twenty Chinese characters. Usually twelve characters in length initially, an empress’s posthumous title typically begins with xiao [filialness], continues with a series of eulogising phrase, and ends with the temple name of her emperor. An emperor newly ascended to the throne was to add one or two laudatory phrases to the previous emperors and empresses.

There were strict regulations on the final lengths of posthumous titles. When the Qianlong Emperor ascended the throne in the thirteenth year of the Yongzheng reign (1735), he realised that if every emperor added to his predecessors’ posthumous titles, they would become unwieldy and confusing, and he thus issued an edict to the effect that such additions were to be done within reason and were not required. By the Jiaqing reign, Nurhaci’s posthumous title was twenty-four characters long, those of Taizong, Shizu, and Shengzu were each twenty-two characters long, and those of all subsequent emperors were each sixteen characters long. It was decided that these would not be further lengthened.² From this point onwards, the meanings and lengths of imperial posthumous titles were standardised.

Now let us consider the use of posthumous imperial seals.

The texts of posthumous imperial seals were generally inscribed in both Chinese and Manchu scripts. In practice, each deceased emperor or empress would receive three posthumous seals, made respectively in silk, sandalwood, and jade. After being ceremonially read, the silk seal was burnt at the altar of the diseased. The sandalwood seal was interred in the mausoleum, whereas the jade seal was dedicated at the Imperial Ancestral Temple. Silk and sandalwood seals, not meant for posterity, were relatively simply made, whereas jade seals were made to last and thus finely designed and crafted from carefully chosen materials, taking tremendous amounts of labour and time. First, the Palace Workshops (Zaobanchu) under the Imperial Household Department (Neiwufu) would produce the seal block from jade according to specifications, and submit its dimensions and condition to the Grand Secretariat. The Hanlin Academy would write the Manchu seal text, and the Grand Secretariat the Chinese seal text. The Astronomical Bureau (Qintianjian) would then select an auspicious date for the execution of the inscription, after which the Hanlin Academy would send its officials to the Grand Secretariat to verify the Chinese text, and the Grand Secretariat to verify the Manchu text. When the completed text was found to be correct, the seal would then be passed to the Imperial Household Department and then to the Inner Clean Room (Neijieshi) Imperial Ancestral Temple for submission for use. When changes were made to previous emperors’ and empresses’ posthumous titles, their posthumous seals would typically be modified accordingly. They would be placed in the Inner Clean Room, and their texts would be erased and replaced with the updated ones by artisans of the Palace Workshops according to specifications from the Hanlin Academy and the Grand Secretariat.

The practice of housing posthumous imperial seals at the Imperial Ancestral Temple also evolved over time. In the first year of the Chongde reign (1636), the Ancestral Temple was established on the east side of Fujin Gate in Shengjing, but at the time only the deceased emperors’ and empresses’ spirit tablets were housed there. After the Manchus of the Qing dynasty occupied Beijing in the first year of the Shunzhi reign (1644), another Ancestral Temple on the west side of Duan Gate was built, but this temple likewise did not house jade albums and jade seals. In the seventh month of the second year of the Shunzhi reign (1645), the jade albums and jade seals of Taizu Wuhuangdi, Xiaoci Wuhuanghou and Taizong Wenhuangdi were housed at the Ancestral Temple in Beijing—the first instance of this practice. In the second month of the ninth year of the Shunzhi reign (1652), the jade albums and jade seals of Sizu Kaohuangdi, Sizu Bihuanghou and Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang were also moved to the Ancestral Temple.³ From this point onwards, the jade album and jade seal of every deceased emperor and empress would be dedicated at the Ancestral Temple, which would be home to  sixteen posthumous imperial seals by the forty-fifth year of the Qianlong reign (1780).

In the twenty-fourth year of the Qianlong reign (1759), the Qing regime pacified Hui areas and secured the supply of Khotan jade. In the forty-fifth year of his reign (1780), the Qianlong Emperor decreed that a new set of posthumous imperial jade albums also be made and dedicated at the Ancestral Temple in Beijing, and that the old ones would be dedicated at the Ancestral Temple in Shengjing.⁴ The old posthumous imperial seals had been made on an ad hoc basis and thus were of different colours and qualities, and bore finials in the shape of addorsed dragons. The new set would be of the same size and form, with finials in the shape of addorsed dragons, and crafted uniformly from Khotan jade. In the seventh month of the forty-seventh year of the Qianlong reign, the sixteen new seals were completed, and in the tenth month the Qianlong Emperor himself dedicated them at the Ancestral Temple. In the following year, before leaving for his fourth Southern Inspection Tour, he ordered Yonglang, Prince Yi, and others to send the sixteen old jade albums and seals to the Ancestral Temple in Shengjing, thereby beginning the practice of maintaining two sets of imperial jade albums and seals between the former and current capitals.⁵ When a new emperor added to his predecessors’ posthumous titles, officials and craftspeople would be tasked by the court to recarve the Shengjing set. As of the fourteenth year of the Guangxu reign (1888), when posthumous seals were sent to Shengjing for the last time, the Ancestral Temple in Shengjing housed a total of thirty-two posthumous imperial seals, and that in Beijing housed a total of forty, including those of emperors from Zhaozu Yuanhuangdi to Tongzhi.

In the chaos of the early twentieth century, the forty seals in Beijing were lost and dispersed around the world. In the second year of the Xuantong reign (1910), the Qing court remade the seals, which are now mostly in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing. Due to time constraints and financial difficulties faced by the court, these later creations were of  considerably lower-quality craftsmanship than the originals.

The above gives a concrete picture of the posthumous seals of the Qing emperors and empresses. The four rulers before Nurhaci and their consorts each had two posthumous seals, one made in the ninth year of the Shunzhi reign with a finial of crouching dragons, and the other made in the second year of the Xuantong reign with a finial of addorsed dragons. The sixteen emperors from Nurhaci to Yongzheng each had three seals: one from the earliest set, with a finial of crouching dragons, housed in Shengjing; one made between the forty-fifth and forty-seventh years of the Qianlong reign, with a finial of addorsed dragons, housed in Beijing; and one replacement made in the second year of the Xuantong reign and housed in Beijing. The emperors from the Qianlong to Tongzhi reigns also each had three seals: two identical ones made to the Qianlong Emperor’s standardised specifications, split between Shengjing and Beijing, and one replacement made during the Xuantong reign, all three having finials of addorsed dragons. The Guangxu Emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi each had one posthumous seal.

Finally, let us consider Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang and her posthumous seals.

Xiaozhuang (1613-87) was a member of the Borjigin clan and an outstanding character among early-Qing imperial consorts. She was the empress of Hongtaiji, Emperor Taizong, and the birth mother of the Shunzhi Emperor and the grandmother of the Kangxi Emperor. Before the Qing conquered China, she had risen to a prominent stature among Hongtaiji’s fifteen consorts, and became the Empress Dowager during the Shunzhi reign and the Grand Empress Dowager during the Kangxi reign. After the Qing conquered Beijing, she helped her son and grandson rule and almost became one of the most important political decision-makers, laying the foundation for the dynasty’s stability and future development. The vicissitudes of her political and personal lives during the three reigns made her also one of the most legendary women of the Qing period. She died on the  twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the twenty-sixth day of the Kangxi reign (1687), at the age of 75.

In the 10th month of that year, Kangxi bestowed on her the posthumous title Xiaozhuang Renxuan Chengxian Gongyi Yitian Qisheng Wenhuanghou. To this the Yongzheng Emperor added the phrase zhide in the eighth month of the first year of his reign (1723). The Qianlong Emperor, in the third month of his first year (1736), further added the phrase chunhui, bringing her posthumous title to the standardised sixteen-character form, which would remain unchanged.

The Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang’s first posthumous seal was made in the thirty-third year of the Kangxi reign (1684), and has a finial of crouching dragons and a seal face measuring 14.4 cm on each side. Now in the collection of the Palace Museum, Shenyang, this seal was recarved respectively in the first years of the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns. Her second seal was one of the new seals the Qianlong Emperor made between the forty-fifth and forty-seventh years of his reign, and was carved from green jade with a finial of addorsed dragons. This is the posthumous seal currently on offer at Sotheby’s. Because it had been dispersed from the Ancestral Temple in Beijing, a replacement was made in the second year of Xuantong. This was the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang’s third posthumous seal and is preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing.

To reiterate: Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang’s green jade posthumous seal presently on offer was created between the forty-fifth and forty-seventh years of the Qianlong reign. Originally housed at the Ancestral Temple in Beijing, it was lost in the early 20th century. Fortunately, the First Historical Archives of China contains the original text design of this seal, entitled Xiaozhuang Wenhuanghou yubao benwen (“Original text of Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang’s jade seal”). The design, combining the Manchu text in regular script and the Chinese text in seal script, is drawn in ink on paper, and measures 12.6 cm on each side. In dimensions, textual content and script styles, the design is consistent with the current lot.

It is clear that the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang’s posthumous seal on offer was one of the important ritual objects of the Qing imperial court and was intimately connected to its systems of ancestral veneration. It sheds important light on the development of Qing court rituals and customs relating to ancestral worship.

¹ Qing shigao, vol 86.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Qingchao wenxian tongkao, vol. 109.
⁵ Qing Gaozong shilu, vol. 1109.