Turquoise jade was not popular in the early days of Qing Qianlong. However, in the late Qianlong period, the price of jadeite began to rise, which may be related to the conquest of Jinchuan (now Sichuan) during the Qianlong period, which made the traffic between the jadeite producing area and the Central Plains smooth. Ruan Yuan, a Confucian classics scholar, once wrote in "Emerald Jade Effect Lotte Yuefu": "There was national music in ancient times, and now there is national jade; The court didn't cherish it, so this kind of jade became popular. The color is not white and green, but green; Brilliant in the name of jade, greed and lust compete with each other. Better than gold, the price is five or six times more; Yunnan Guan Camel Yulai, rough and mediocre. " It can be seen that although there are many jades from Qianlong to Jiaqing, which are not loved by the royal family, they are very popular among the people, and the jade is the best and the most expensive. Until Guangxu period, because Empress Dowager Cixi loved jade, jade finally became popular in the court.
There are different opinions about the origin of jadeite cabbage. First, jade cabbage is the dowry of Emperor Guangxu's concubine Jin Fei, and it is placed in Yonghe Palace where Jin Fei lives. According to scholars' speculation, there is a tiger carved on the jade cabbage, which represents children and grandchildren. Cabbage is blue and white, which symbolizes the innocence of a family and has a pure metaphor. It may be the dowry left by the mother of Jin and Zhen.
Jade cabbage was originally planted upright in enamel flowerpots, which made people feel quite opposed. After all, ordinary cabbage is not planted in flowerpots. Later, the enamel flowerpots and ganoderma lucidum were put in the warehouse, and the cabbage was put on the wooden frame, so that the exquisite carving of jadeite cabbage was fully displayed.
The meat-shaped stone is completely opposite to the finely carved jade cabbage, and its appearance is natural and can be confused. In fact, fleshy stone is agate mixed with impurities in the growth process, which is influenced by impurities at different time points, producing different colors and forming different colors layer by layer. After ingenious thinking by craftsmen, and stained with stone skin on the surface, this finished product with distinct skin and flesh, distinct fat and lean meat, realistic pore texture and high similarity with real pork is like a Dongpo meat that makes people move their fingers.
Mao's fame is due to his vicissitudes after excavation. 1843, Dong Chunsheng, a villager from Dongjia Village, Shaanxi Province, discovered Mao Dinggong, which was admired by all parties because of the inscription on his tripod. After many twists and turns, it was even hidden in secret, and then it came to Chen Jieqi, the hand of an epigrapher. However, after Chen died in 1882, later generations were greedy for money, and Mao was cheated into the hands of Duan Fang, the governor of Liangjiang. Soon, Duan Fang died of illness, and Mao went through many twists and turns and got into the hands of the painter. After the outbreak of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, in order to prevent Mao from falling into the hands of the Japanese, a fake tripod was made and given to the Japanese. Later, Ye Jia had to pawn Mao in the bank. After the Anti-Japanese War, the tripod was donated to the National Government and collected in the Nanjing Central Museum. After the defeat of the Kuomintang regime in the civil war, it moved to Taiwan Province with the National Government.
Compared with other cultural relics, jade cabbage and meat-shaped stone may not be long enough, but they have shapes that ordinary people can understand at a glance and are easy to approach. Their figures often appear in textbooks, shouldering the heavy responsibility of basic art education, and also become a cultural memory shared by the public.