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- As was mentioned above, the Ming dynasty was a time of strong individual styles in jade carving. The most famous jade artisan mentioned in literature on Chinese jades, Lu Zigang, belonged to this period and worked under these very favourable circumstances in Suzhou, one of the great cultural centres of Ming China. Active in the second half of the sixteenth century, he is said to have worked only in mutton fat jade, making articles for the scholar�s desk such as boxes, armrests and water containers, and ornaments such as hairpins and pendants. He is also known to have excelled in the making of archaistic pieces. Lu used the rotary metal disc to carve, but finished the finer details with a special knife called bin tie:7 His works with elegant shapes and meticulous detail were renowned and fetched huge prices even during his own lifetime. It is quite unfortunate that there are no pieces that can be definitely attibuted to him.
Ming jades are characterized by a basic simplicity of form and massive heavi�ness in style. However, some jade artifacts excavated from Ming tombs such as Wang Xingzu�s tomb in Nanjing,18 Emperor Wanli�s tomb in Beijing, and the tombs of Lu Shen and his family near Shanghai,19 reveal that Ming craftsmen had reached a very high technical level, especially with extremely delicate openwork, undercut reliefs in several layers and thinness of carving. The themes were varied and seem to reflect the mood and aesthetic interests of the period.
Ming jade artists continued to carve bronze shapes in jade following the Song archaistic tradition, but reached a greater maturity and developed a fuller range of forms and styles. This archaistic trend would continue throughout the Ming and into the succeeding Qing dynasty.
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