A new adventure for Hamza

In July, I wrote about the Mughal painter Daswanth and his illustrations for the Hamzanama (Adventures of Hamza), commissioned by the emperor Akbar in the mid-16^th century. Akbar’s atelier of artists created some 1,400 illustrated pages (folios) for this magnificent work, of which perhaps 200 have survived. What I didn’t know at the time was that a newly discovered folio had been consigned for sale at Christie’s in London. On October 20^th, that piece (below) sold at auction for £821,000. If it had been in pristine condition, like the ones in the Smithsonian, it could have fetched seven figures.

Entitled “The Rukh carries Amir Hamza to his home”, the folio depicts a scene where our hero Hamza takes the quickest route home by clinging to the legs of a rukh, a giant mythical bird which some may remember as the roc in the Sinbad stories. The roc is really not pleased, as shown by its furious expression as it turns to peck at Hamza. Our hero hangs on bravely as they fly across the ocean, only a few feet above the waves, watched by a couple of curious fish on the lower right. Bear in mind that these illustrations are quite large, around 25 inches (65cm) high and 20 inches (50cm) wide, so its impact when new must have been stunning.

I was also excited to learn that the piece is attributed by the art historian John Seyller to the artists Daswanth and Shravana. Dr Seyller points to key elements of Daswanth’s style, like the use of huge forms and supernatural images (remember the ghoul in the Jaipur Museum’s Razm-nama). You can read the Lot Essay that he wrote for Christie’s here. Daswanth and Shravana worked together on several folios of the Hamzanama, some of which were included in the Smithsonian’s exhibition of 2002 (check out the beautiful catalogue here). You may also recall that Shravana worked on the brilliant depiction of evil Zumurrud Shah and his henchmen escaping on flying jars.

There’s something irresistible about the image of the giant roc. Below for example is a poster produced by the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin for its production of Sinbad the Sailor in 1892. Like Hamza, Sinbad uses the roc as an unwilling form of transport.

While researching other images of the roc, I came across this painting (below) from the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, and was struck by the similarities with the Rukh folio. This piece is dated 1590, some twenty-five years later than the Rukh, and is attributed to the eminent Mughal painter Basawan. He was a colleague of Daswanth and Shravana in the imperial atelier and worked alongside them on the Hamzanama.

Although the image here derives from a poem by the Persian poet Nizami, and the flying creature is not a roc but a simurgh (more like a phoenix), I couldn’t help wondering if it was to some extent inspired by Daswanth and Shravana’s work.

Anthony Welch, in Arts of the Islamic Book, points out that the simurgh plays a key role in Arabic and Iranian mystical stories, so “a Muslim arriving at Akbar’s court from Iran or Central Asia would have recognised this work immediately”. So perhaps the similarities are simply due to the genre.  But if Basawan’s work is, even in a small way, a nod to his former colleague Daswanth (who had died tragically six years before), that must add to the importance of the Rukh folio.

I really hope that the folio will eventually reside in a public museum for all to see. Trustees of the V&A and the Smithsonian, now is the time for action!

A revolution in oils: patriotic art at the National Museum of China

If you ever visit the National Museum of China (and you absolutely must because it is fabulous), it’s worth looking at the permanent exhibition in Central Hall 1 entitled Masterpieces of Chinese Modern Fine Art. What this actually offers is a series of paintings depicting (mostly) events relating to the revolution. The style and subject matter are not everyone’s cup of tea but there’s no denying the power behind some of these works.

One eye-catching example is Lin Gang’s Joining of the Forces at Jinggang Mountain (above), said to depict a key moment in the revolutionary struggle when Mao’s forces made contact with those of a fellow commander. Everything is bright and breezy. The old lady on the left hobbles forward with a basket of supplies to support the cause. In the lower right background, a soldier brandishes his rifle and shouts the good news to comrades down the line.  Mao is taller than everyone else and quite improbably handsome. Even the horse (on the right) gazes at him with misty eyes. 

I was surprised to learn that this work was not created in the heat of revolutionary fervour but in the late 1970s, in the early days of the post-Mao era. Were such images still de rigueur then? Perhaps with the scandals of the Gang of Four trials, it was important to remind the public of the original aims of the revolution.

The most famous work on display in Central Hall 1 is Dong Xiwen’s The Founding of the Nation (below), depicting the moment when Mao announced the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. This is in the approved style with references to classical Chinese motifs, such as the clouds which are supposed to resemble the auspicious lingzhi fungus (don’t ask). And you can’t miss those gigantic red lanterns!

This piece has a particularly curious history. Since its unveiling in 1953, it has gone through multiple “updates” to insert or remove figures in the group on the left. According to historian Chang-Tai Hung*, the following changes were made:

- In 1954, the figure of Gao Gang, a senior party leader, was painted out after he was accused of plotting to seize power.

- In 1967, the figure of Liu Shaoqi, ex-Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, was deleted after he was condemned as a bourgeois reactionary.

- In 1972, the figure of Lin Boqu, a senior Politburo member, was deleted, ostensibly for opposing the marriage of Mao and his powerful wife Jiang Qing. As they had been married for 24 years by then, one suspects there were other reasons for Lin’s disappearance.

- And then in 1979, after the fall of Jiang Qing’s Gang of Four, all the above three figures were reinstated in the painting. One assumes that this is the final-final version, as everyone in it has been dead for some time.

Something else that’s interesting about this exhibition is the dominance of oil painting. Chinese artists in the 18^th and 19^th centuries tended to view oils as a strange foreign medium, inferior to the subtlety of ink brush painting. But this attitude changed in the 20^th century under the influence of European-trained artists like Xu Beihong and because of China’s developing alliance with the Soviet Union. Russian artist Konstantin Maksimov, who taught at the Chinese Academy of Fine Art in the mid-1950s, is often cited as a major influence. He was a proponent of Social Realism in art, and his painting Sashka the Tractor Driver in Virgin Lands (below) certainly has something in common with the works in Central Hall 1. 

Even if this sort of thing doesn’t appeal, I urge you to visit the National Museum if you can. If you’re pressed for time, focus on the lower ground floor collection which is misleadingly entitled “Ancient China”: this actually contains a vast treasure trove of objects from the Neolithic to the Qing period. And there’s a very good museum shop.

*Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol 49, No 4, Oct 2007, p.783

To Famen and back - and still searching

This 9^th century Tang Dynasty reliquary, made to hold a fragment of bone from (allegedly) the Buddha himself, is one of my favourite pieces of Chinese Buddhist art, and I was very much hoping to see it on my recent trip to China. But as I trailed round the museum of the Famen Temple at Xian, where it was discovered in the 1980s, it remained stubbornly out of sight. There were all manner of reliquaries on display: originally there were four separate sets containing three decoys (or “shadow bones”) and one true fragment. But I just couldn’t track this one down.

It’s not like it would be easy to miss. Standing around 38cm (15 inches) in height, it is made of dazzling silver-gilt studded with pearls. The base is shaped as a lotus throne, each petal containing an image of the Buddha. The richly adorned figure at the top is a bodhisattva, a celestial being who has chosen to remain on earth to help poor mortal souls (the most well-known bodhisattva is probably Avalokitesvara, worshipped as Guan Yin in the Chinese canon). Down on one knee, he holds up an ornate tray which would have contained the bone fragment (or decoy).

The inscription indicates a date equivalent to 871AD and suggests an imperial commission by the then Emperor Yizong, of whom history has nothing good to say (“unstable, cruel, inexperienced and capricious”, says historian Ann Paludan). In commissioning this piece however, Yizong was simply following a longstanding belief of Chinese Buddhism, which was that great offerings brought great spiritual merit. It didn’t really work for him: he was dead within two years and the Tang dynasty collapsed some forty years later.

I can’t really say why I like this piece, with its eye-smacking degree of bling. I think it’s because under it all, the craftsman has given the bodhisattva (with its slight incline of the head) a genuine air of wanting to do good which isn’t eclipsed by the gaudy jewels or the ghastliness of the imperial patron. He’s going to kneel there and offer that bone (or decoy) because that’s what a bodhisattva does: he doesn't give up on the world.

The discovery of the reliquaries is quite a story in itself. The Famen Temple (built on the site of a much older place of worship) blossomed from the late 6^th century onwards as the Sui and Tang Dynasties, both devout Buddhists, came to power. In 1981, half of its famous pagoda collapsed in torrential rain (see below). When repair work began in 1987, an underground chamber was discovered containing a cache of precious religious artefacts, including the four sets of reliquaries.

Today the temple and pagoda have been sensitively restored and look like this.

In 2009 however, the regional government and the temple authorities decided to expand the neighbouring plot of land to create a modern annexe, capable of accommodating the thousands of visitors from China’s burgeoning local tourism trade. So they built this.

Which is so vast that you have to get around on one of these.

But whatever you may think about 21^st century bling, I really enjoyed my visit to the Famen, which is just as well as I may have to go back one day to see if I can find the bodhisattva.

Indus Valley seals: tiny objects of mystery

Having enjoyed the new Bollywood epic Mohenjo Daro, I’m devoting this next post to Indus Valley seals: not just because they feature in the film’s plot but because (like the plot) they are quite mystifying. Even the film’s lead actor, Hrithik Roshan, looks beautifully perplexed.

Mohenjo Daro is one of the most important ancient cities so far discovered on the South Asian subcontinent, rivalled only by Harappa which was the first to be found. Both lie in the Indus valley in modern-day Pakistan and have been dated to the 3^rd millennium BC. To put that in context, they were of about the same period as the Minoans in Crete, and pre-dated the reign of Tutankhamun by several centuries.

Although both Harappa and Mohenjo Daro were large and probably wealthy cities, not many of their fine artefacts have survived. Among the most interesting, however, are some tiny pieces of steatite or soapstone, about 4cm square, intricately carved on one side and with a little handle on the back. Historians believe that these were used as seals, perhaps by tradesmen who wanted to mark bundles of goods. The image below from the Metropolitan Museum shows one of these seals (left) and its resulting imprint (right).

Before looking at the images on the seals, it’s worth noting that the symbols along the upper edge are examples of Indus Valley script, which remains undeciphered to this day. In the Internet age, it is humbling to come up against something like this. Until we find a Rosetta stone or an Alan Turing to decode the script, our understanding of the Indus civilizations will remain sadly incomplete.

The images on the seals are equally fascinating. The Met’s is a classic because the animal shown (which is surely a bull or buffalo) has been described by fanciful observers as a unicorn because it has only one horn. I’m not sure anyone truly believes this but it provides good fodder for lengthy academic argument.

Other seals have even more complex imagery. The one below (from the National Museum in Delhi) is famous because some believe that it depicts an early incarnation of the god Shiva, flanked by a rhinoceros, a buffalo, a tiger and an elephant. One of Shiva’s titles was “Lord of the Animals” or “Pashupati”, hence the seal is commonly referred to as the Pashupati seal.

 In the one below (from the Islamabad Museum), a religious ceremony seems to be in progress: in the upper left, a figure stands in a tree while another figure kneels in worship. To the right there seems to be a bull with a human face, while along the bottom is a row of seven women. One suggestion is that they are ancient ancestors of the Matrikas, the Hindu goddesses who always appear in a group of seven.

Some other seals are so strange that they must have been used for purposes other than trade. I can’t imagine how the one below (a horned woman attacking a tiger) would find favour among clients, unless the goods or services were very specific indeed.  Pest control, perhaps?

To be fair, there are some unusual corporate logos still in use today – I’ve never understood how a picture of bees swarming around a dead lion helps to sell Lyle’s Golden Syrup, for example (below). The slogan “Out of the strong came forth sweetness” doesn’t explain much.

But what if the seals’ undeciphered pictograms are actually slogans as well? “Unicorn Cattle Feed – nourish your mythical beast”. The key to the code must surely be found someday, perhaps in a dusty museum archive. Until then, it’s a waiting game.

Matteo Ricci in the UCL art collection

At the Public Curating Takeover hosted by University College London last week (a great event, by the way), I was delighted to find this print in the collection. There was no mistaking the image of Matteo Ricci (on the left), perhaps the most famous Jesuit missionary ever to work in China. The figure on the right is named as Paul Siu, about whom more later.

The UCL catalogue does not name the artist, but other sources trace this image to a book (China Illustrata) published around 1668 by a Jesuit scholar named Athanasius Kircher. Whether Kircher actually executed the engraving himself is unclear. Judging from the rather muddled Chinese characters on the altar hangings, I would guess that it wasn’t the work of a Chinese artist.

Ricci first arrived at the fledgling Jesuit mission in southern China in 1582, when Christian missionaries were struggling to gain a foothold. He successfully applied the Jesuit strategy of “cultural accommodation”: adapting to local language and customs to spread the message, while dressing and living as a scholarly Chinese gentleman to win the trust of influential local people. Hence the significance of this image, in which he wears Chinese robes and a Confucian scholar’s hat. By 1601 Ricci had established the first Jesuit mission in Beijing itself and had begun to build direct ties with the Imperial Court, quite a coup by any standards.

For the art world, Ricci was important in at least two ways. First, he laid the way for Giuseppe Castiglione (a Jesuit priest and artist) to become an influential Qing dynasty court painter in the 18^th century. Castiglione became noted for elaborate portraits like the one of the Qianlong emperor, below. His work is sometimes dismissed as trivial but he became a key member of the imperial atelier (pretty amazing for a foreign artist) thanks to foundations laid down by Ricci. These days, no exhibition of Qing art is complete without a few Castigliones – his portraits of imperial pet dogs are especially popular. 

But it is Ricci’s role in the clock-making industry that I find most fascinating. Mechanical time-keeping devices (the kind that run on springs and cogs) didn’t exist in 16^th century China. When Ricci presented a pair of European clocks to the Wanli emperor in 1601, he set off an absolute craze for the devices. It seems the 17^th century Chinese were as keen on modern technology as their modern descendants. And having studied the imported European models, they eventually set up their own clock-making workshops (mainly around Guangdong) which flourished as the growing middle classes all wanted one too. Hardly surprising, as some of the finest Imperial palace clocks looked like this (below), which sold at Christie’s Hong Kong in 2008 for US$4 million.

Best of all, according to the historian Joseph Needham, Matteo Ricci was worshipped well into the 19^th century as a patron deity (pu-sa) of the Shanghai guild of clockmakers, due to his role in bringing modern clock-making to China. Now that’s cultural accommodation!

As for Paul Siu, he was born Xu Guangqi and brought up as a good Confucian. He rose through the ranks of Chinese bureaucracy to become a “first grand secretary” in the Ming dynasty, before converting to Christianity in 1601. According to the historian David Mungello, Xu and two other senior civil servants were Matteo Ricci’s most celebrated converts, later known as the Three Pillars of the early Christian church in China.

So the UCL collection’s print is significant because it illustrates both the strength of Matteo Ricci’s missionary zeal (as reflected in his full Chinese dress), and shows next to him an example of his success in the form of Paul Siu. 

Daswanth the mysterious Mughal painter

Indian painting of the Mughal school blossomed in the late 16^th century during the reign of Akbar, grandson of Babur (whom you will recall was not fond of jackfruit.) It was particularly influenced by two Persian masters, Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd as-Samad, who were in charge of the imperial atelier. In 1597, Akbar’s biographer Abu’l Fazl drew up a list of the best painters of the period. The two Persians were placed respectfully at the top, but surprisingly, third place went to a low-born painter named Daswanth (or Dasavanta), who some twelve years earlier had succumbed to madness and taken his own life.

To be placed third was no mean achievement – there was some amazing talent in Akbar’s stable of artists, most of whom didn’t even make the list. Below for example is an illustration from the Hamza-nama (The Adventures of Hamza) which is attributed to two of these artists, Shravana and Madhava Khurd. It depicts an episode where the giant Zumurrud Shah and his followers escape on flying jars with the help of wicked sorcerers. Neither of these artists made the list, even though the work is quite delightful – look at the playful structure and the energy bursting off the page. 

More of this on the Smithsonian website at www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/hamza/hamza.htm and hopefully in a subsequent post.

What did Daswanth have to match this? As a young artist, he too contributed to the Hamza-nama but some of his finest mature works were said to be the illustrations to Akbar’s copy of the Razm-nama (the Persian adaptation of the Mahabharata). This is owned by the Jaipur royal family and has been locked away from public view for decades. No-one knows why – is it something as mundane as a legal dispute between the heirs of the last Maharaja? That hasn’t prevented access to other works though.

I first encountered Daswanth in an article by the art historian Milo Cleveland Beach which included some blurry monochrome images from the Razm-nama. In the one below, depicting a night assault on the enemy camp, a huge ghoul wearing a necklace of heads (upper right) rises out of the corpse of the slain warrior Sikhandin (lower right). Dating from the early 1580s, shortly before the painter’s death, it’s tempting to see in this some hint of the dark thoughts which led to his demise.

Further research led me to a massive four-volume catalogue entitled Memorials of the Jeypore Exhibition by Thomas Holbein Hendley, published in 1883 (if you request this in the British Library, be prepared to wheel it in a cart to a special table where photography is banned!). Volume 4 contains a full set of images taken from the Jaipur Razm-nama, in monochrome only but giving a pretty good idea of the range of Daswanth’s work. There is a stunning double-page picture of a maze comprised of rows of soldiers, into which the hero Arjuna’s son was lured and killed. Hendley praises the intense colours in this painting – sadly we can only imagine this for ourselves.

At least Daswanth’s skills may be appreciated in the Hamza-nama, for example in the image below depicting the messenger Umar slaying a dragon. The wonderful colours of the dragon, and the way the nervous onlookers at the top seem to be almost tumbling over the rocky cliff, may help to explain Abu’l Fazl’s high regard for Daswanth. But until we see the full glory of the Jaipur Razm-nama, we may never know for sure how great an artist he was.

Strong women and revolting aunts in 10th century China

This large dish or charger in the famille verte style dates from the Kangxi period (1661-1772), Qing dynasty. It sold at Bonham’s recently for a nice £25,000, well above the estimate. While I’m not a big fan of the green tones of famille verte, I was intrigued by the catalogue note stating that: “It depicts a legendary moment during the Northern Song Dynasty when, after all the men had been slaughtered by the Khitan invaders, the women of the Yang family took up arms and bravely galloped out to meet the enemy.”

Some readers may mutter “Oh, the Yangs”, and indeed they are an important strand in Chinese popular culture, but I had never heard of them. Their story is a mix of truth and legend (mostly the latter), complicated by re-telling in plays, operas, films and television.

There is historical evidence of a distinguished military family named Yang, led by General Yang Ye, who came to prominence under the great Northern Song emperor Taizong (r. 976-997). Wilt Idema in his book Generals of the Yang Family: Four Early Plays cites an 11^th century tomb inscription which praises the Yangs’ military prowess. He also notes repeated references in popular tales such as the Judge Bao stories (13^th-15^th century).

But the Yang legend really gets going in the 16^th century through two sets of fictional tales detailing their exploits against the Khitan invaders. It is from here that stories of the Yang women warriors begin to proliferate, the most famous being Mu Guiying who defeated one of the Yang sons in battle and then proposed marriage to him. According to legend, her strategies later played a key role in breaking the Khitans’ hitherto undefeated Heavenly Battle Array.

The Yang family did not lack for strong women however, many of them being widows of Yang menfolk killed in war. Mu’s mother-in-law She Saihua was famously feisty, and in one version, actually led the women into battle herself at the age of 100 (perhaps as illustrated on the Qing dish above). In a more recent TV version cited by Khoo Poh Cheng in a paper at MIT, Mu even has to deal with a revolt by senior aunts who question her authority as military leader. What would PG Wodehouse have made of that? Did they bellow like mastodons across the primeval swamp?

While the exploits of the Yang women were almost certainly fictional, their role as a cultural and political symbol in China has been very real. A key example is Women Generals of the Yang Family (Yangmen Nijiang), a staple of the Beijing Opera’s repertoire. Based on an earlier play, the opera was created around 1960 at a time when political and economic changes opened up opportunities for women in China. During the Cultural Revolution, the opera was banned by Mao Zedong’s powerful wife Jiang Qing, citing some guff about it being contrary to Mao’s views. After the fall of Jiang’s Gang of Four, the opera was gleefully restored and lauded for showing the right spirit of female dedication to political life. I’m still kicking myself for missing the performance at Sadlers Wells last winter (see below).

The depiction of the Yang women on Qing dynasty ceramics is not particularly rare: a few have come up at auction in recent years. One could go on about the various manifestations of the Yang women (I’d like to see The 14 Amazons, a 1970s Hong Kong flick starring Ivy Ling Po), but the final word must go to Mu Guiying, who has even had a crater named after her on Venus (see below). A very elegant one too.

Sometimes a god needs comfort food too

This 15^th-16^th century stone sculpture of the Indian god Ganesha depicts the elephant-headed deity in typical seated pose, with his fat belly bulging over his chubby thighs. Apart from his most obvious attribute, he is also identifiable by the iconographic symbols he holds: the conch shell in his upper right hand; the noose (upper left hand - sometimes a goad or an axe), representing a weapon to catch or clear away obstacles; and his favourite ladhu sweet (lower left hand) which he is tucking into greedily. He usually holds a lotus flower as well.

Ganesha is worshipped for his ability to remove obstacles and bestow success on new initiatives, so this post should really have been the first in this blog. In case you haven’t tried them, ladhus (see below) are delicious if you have a super-sweet tooth, and Ganesha’s fondness for them is one of the things that makes him a particular favourite amongst Hindu devotees.

As if that were not endearing enough, his closest companion is a mouse, depicted on the front of the plinth in the image above. Sometimes the mouse is shown clasping his little paws in worship of Ganesha; elsewhere it has been shown bearing the god on its back (although the idea of a mouse of that size is a tad disturbing). Either way, the myth about elephants being scared of mice doesn’t apply here.

Ganesha’s story is more than a little eccentric. Unlike most gods who tend to be born from lotus flowers or cosmic seas, Ganesha was born of the goddess Parvati looking quite normal. The story goes that his father Shiva (one of the three great Hindu gods along with Vishnu and Brahma) was away for a long time. On returning, he was greeted at the door by a grown-up Ganesha whom he did not recognise. Assuming him to be an interloper, he acted as gods will often do and cut off the young man’s head. At this point, Parvati appeared. Presumably there followed what the police sometimes call “an exchange of words”.

To make up for his blunder, Shiva went out to find a new head for his son (still with us here?). Like any reluctant husband sent out to do the shopping, he settled for the first thing he saw, which was the head of a passing elephant. Parvati's response can only be imagined, but with an ample supply of ladhus all seems to have ended well. In some segments of the Hindu faith, the family may be depicted as a happy group including Ganesha's brother Skanda (or Kartikeya) and his father's bull Nandi. The particularly jolly depiction below comes from the Sri Aruloli temple on Penang Hill in Malaysia. 

Imperial survivors

This 12th century Chinese handscroll painting, commonly known as Auspicious Cranes, is attributed to Huizong, eighth emperor of the Song dynasty. It claims to depict a real-life incident when a flock of cranes (believed to bring good fortune) descended on the imperial palace in 1112.

That an emperor could paint as well as this may be surprising, but Huizong was a member of possibly the most cultured and accomplished dynasty ever to rule China. Unlike the more famous Tang, Ming and Qing dynasties, the Song were always a bit of a mystery to me, and I found their tale compelling.

The Northern Song ruled China from the 10th to the 12th centuries before being displaced, later morphing into the Southern Song (explained below). They were great patrons of art and culture, building massive libraries, becoming expert calligraphers and collecting art on a grand scale. Huizong typified these traits, even creating his own flowery calligraphic style known as “slender gold” (shoujing, below). What he lacked, though, were the leadership skills of his more illustrious ancestors.

China had long been threatened by two aggressive northern neighbours: the Khitan Liao and the Jurchen Jin. Huizong’s government tried ineptly to form an alliance with one against the other, annoying both in the process. Eventually, the Jin launched an invasion in the winter of 1125, and proceeded to pillage and destroy on a scale that I’d thought only existed in lurid historical movies.

Patricia Ebrey gives a gripping account of this in her book, Accumulating Culture. Two particular anecdotes stand out for me. First, having taken the capital Kaifeng after a brutal siege, the Jin began to hunt down and capture every member of the imperial family. They were so thorough that, among the dozens of children and grandchildren, they noticed that one baby prince was missing, hidden by his nursemaid. They were, of course, hunted down too.

The Jin toyed with the Song by making an endless series of demands. The hapless Huizong had abdicated by then, so it was his heir Qinzong who was subjected to this cat-and-mouse game. The Jin simply raised their demands each time (“Thanks for the silk. Now we’d like all your horses too.”) The amounts were staggering: millions of bars of gold and silver, and when this could not be met, women were accepted at a pre-agreed rate (1 princess = 1000 gold bars). When Qinzong tried to negotiate, the Jin general Nianhan said smoothly: “Is there anything here that is not already mine?” 

Finally, the Jin sent all their spoils back to the north, together with the imperial family and clansmen as prisoners. Of this 5000-strong prison convoy, most died en-route from hunger or exhaustion. Huizong and Qinzong survived but later died in captivity.

But this was not the end of the Song, for one of the princes managed to flee to the south where he founded what became known as the Southern Song. Like his ancestors, Emperor Gaozong (as he became) was a great patron of art but he was also a canny operator - he managed to negotiate a workable truce with the Jin, albeit on onerous terms. And he declined to ransom his older brother Qinzong, as this would have displaced him from the throne. The Southern Song lasted a further 150 years.

Studying the Song helped me to appreciate the ceramics from their period, which have a subtler beauty than the more famous Ming or Qing. One might argue that the difference between Huizong and Gaozong is reflected in two famous ceramics created under their respective reigns. On the upper left is an example of Ru ware: a dreamily beautiful blue-glazed Northern Song ceramic, said to resemble “the colour of sky after rain”. Below that is an example of the equally beautiful Guan ware, a Southern Song ceramic with a more pronounced crackle effect which suggests (to me) toughness, endurance and survival.

A lack of good fruit is not an obstacle to empire-building

This delicate painting depicts Zahir ud-Din Muhammad, known as Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty which ruled India from the 16^th to the 19^th centuries. While descended from great warriors like Timur (or Tamerlane) and Genghis Khan, Babur was also rather refined and bookish, as is clear from his autobiography, the Baburnama.

Historians are fond of quoting the passage from that work which tells of Babur’s first impressions of India (or Hindustan). These were, to say the least, unpromising:

Hindustan is a country that has few pleasures to recommend it. The people are not handsome. They have no idea of the charms of friendly society, of frankly mixing together, or of familiar intercourse. They have no genius, no comprehension of mind, no politeness of manner, no kindness of fellow-feeling, no ingenuity or mechanical invention in planning or executing their handicraft works, no skill or knowledge in design or architecture; they have no horses, no good flesh, no grapes or musk melons, no good fruits, no ice or cold water, no good food or bread in their bazaars, no baths or colleges, no candles, no torches, not a candlestick.

While it’s amusing to hear the great Babur whingeing like a boy, this passage also illuminates the fact that India wasn’t his first choice as an empire. Being of Persian descent, he would have much preferred somewhere cultured and civilised like Kabul or Samarkand (which is unbearably sad in the context of recent history). There weren’t enough kingdoms for all the Timurid princes though, so when it was suggested that Babur might go and push out the collapsing Delhi Sultanate which ruled India at the time, off he went and the rest is history.

It is nice to know that Babur eventually came to appreciate the finer things that his new kingdom had to offer. Later in the Baburnama he writes detailed descriptions of local flora and fauna. He is impressed by the magnificence of elephants and rhinoceros; he thinks the local fish are delicious; he thinks mangoes are good, if a tad over-rated; and he finds the local flowers beautiful. But he absolutely loathes jackfruit, which smell bad and look “like sheep intestines turned inside-out” (see below).

You wonder what he would have said if he had known that his great-great-grandson would build the Taj Mahal. At any rate, he would have been pleased that he hadn’t been put off by the lack of good fruit.