A Day at the Ringling Art Museum: The Chinese Exhibit of Fifteenth Century Burial Objects

One of our favorite things to do, while here in south Florida, is to make the short drive from Pinellas Park to Sarasota. There we always visit the Ringling Art Museum and always on Monday. Monday is a free day and all you have to do is state your zip code and you can enter the grounds allowing you to walk the beautiful grounds and visit the museum.

We were especially excited this year as the Searling Gallery, a small part of the Museum was exhibiting Chinese fifteenth burial objects. No photography is allowed in this special wing and so we can’t show you any of the displays but they did not disappoint us.

Right away the first display case contained gold artwork containing cabochons of precious and semiprecious gems. The gold work was exquisite and the cabochons, polished stones, had been finished in their natural shape. This was the preferred method then, unlike the domed and faceted shapes we make today.

Case after case contained more bracelets, hairpins, and hair crowns set in gold. Most of the work contined rubies, emeralds, beryl, topaz, and even agate. Many of the objects had some empty settings where the stones had been plucked,(perhaps by grave robbers?), the story might have added to the exhibit.

Several cases contained nephrite jade carvings, and that was particularly interesting to us as we work Wyoming nephrite jade. The objects themselves were beautifully shaped, however the shine done on the jade was less than that which we can do today.

Also the jade was a lesser quality than our Wyoming jade and then the British Columbian jade we have collected during our travels. There were numerous surface flaws almost as if the jade pieces had been made from what we call heel pieces, perhaps a lesser jade was used for burial pieces?

The Chinese carvers ran out of the nephrite jade in the seventeenth century and started using imported jadeite, (nephrite is a member of the pyroxene mineral group and jadeite an amphibole). Maybe the reason for this was the shortage of nephrite, another untold story. Regardless the carvings were beautiful and something we have only played with. Again I wish we had started working stone many years ago. Where would our art be now?

Finishing the exhibit we stopped for a snack at the enclosed courtyard and anyone who has been there will remember the bronze and marble works that highlight the space. A copy of Michelangelo’s David dominates the wall and peers down at all the statues and castings below.

In other areas we stopped and saw Rueben’s Paintings, German silverwork, and Italian rings in a style close to ours. One room contained glasswork by a modern American artist and it amazed us how such work could be made without fracturing such a delicate media.

Such visits always leaves us inspired to return to our own work and returning home, to our fifth wheel, we lined up some of our own jades pieces. There is so much to do and so little time. If you are in the area we strongly recommend the John and Mable Ringling Art Museum. Clear skies