EVENT DESCRIPTION
Sun Museum will unveil its new exhibition “Colours of the Universe: Jade and Colour Stone Carvings from the Little Moon Pavilion and Songde Tang Collections” on March 19, 2025, featuring 120 pieces of jade and colour stone carvings from the Little Moon Pavilion and Songde Tang collections.
“Colours of the Universe” showcases jade and colour stone carvings from different periods, including the Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing dynasties, and the early to mid-20th century. Materials of the artefacts are diverse and rare, including white jade, agate, amber, amethyst, tea quartz, aventurine glass, coral, hair crystal, jadeite, lapis lazuli, malachite, rock crystal, rose quartz, soapstone, spinach jade and turquoise. There are small jade and stone pendants that can be held in hand as well as decorative art objects. Additionally, some exhibits come along with their original wood stands, which are exquisite art pieces in their own right.
The art of Chinese colour stone carvings can be traced back to ancient times, with its earliest roots seen in the Han and Tang dynasties. It reached its pinnacle during the Qing dynasty. Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty had a keen interest in arts and culture. He recruited skilled craftsmen from all over China to create jade and stone carvings.
One of the impressive pieces from the Qianlong period is the Imperial White Jade Cup, which is carved in a simple classic form with four open windows on scroll ground. The scroll pattern is likely inspired by the Warring State bronze vessel’s decoration. A branch of Hibiscus and Osmanthus blossoms was intricately carved inside the windows together with two corresponding imperial poems. It is very rare to find Qing dynasty jade carvings integrating painting, calligraphy and poem all in one piece. Another must-see item from the same period is the Aventurine Glass Finger Citron (Buddha’s hand) Covered Vase. Aventurine glass artefacts, of which very few survive today, were highly valued by Chinese emperors due to the intricate craftsmanship involved in their creation.
Sun Museum is concurrently launching “Sun Refresh”, a capsule programme to feature artworks of local artists specially created in response to the new exhibition. It aims at encouraging refreshing creative insights, by connecting the ancient and the modern. The first artist to participate in “Sun Refresh” is local veteran artist Mr. John Wong who has created several new works in response to the profound history of those brilliant ancient artefacts in “Colours of the Universe”.
