Thompson & Martinez Fine Art Appraisals, Inc.

On January 14th, 2009 a Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and China was issued restricting the importation of Chinese antiquities, wall art and sculpture. The purpose of this measure is to curb the looting of artifacts from archaeological sites in China which has been rampant for decades.  The MOU states that all antiquities dating from the Paleolithic Period (75,000 B.C.E.) through the end of the Tang Dynasty (907 C.E.) and wall art and sculpture 250 years and older can only be imported into the United States with a valid export certificate or with documentation showing that it had left China prior to January 14th, 2009 (for a detailed list of restricted antiquities visit: http://www.culturalheritage.state.gov/ch2009DLFRN.pdf). This measure has been hotly debated for years with dealers, auction houses and museum officials arguing such restrictions would do little to curb looting as demand in China for antiquities has soared, and, that the international black market would simply shift to those countries without import restrictions.  Although archaeologists acknowledge that the MOU will not put an end to illicit trade, they argue that it is an important first step and sets an example that will encourage other countries to follow suit (http://www.archaeological.org/webinfo.php?page=10497).

This MOU raises important questions. One of the most important to auction houses and dealers is, what is Hong Kong’s status: is it considered to be inside or outside China?  In recent years, Hong Kong has become the center of the international auction market with Christie’s and Sotheby’s holding major sales there several times a year. At this point, Hong Kong is considered to be outside of China and sales will be allowed to continue. Another important question is, who is authorized to issue these licenses and what constitutes an official export license? According to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, 14 agencies have been established throughout China to “independently exercise their authority in reviewing and approving applications…in accordance with laws”.  In practice, this is likely to be a difficult and lengthy process, subject to arbitrary decisions and corruption, discouraging all but the most persistant and well-connected. How does this affect the market for Chinese antiquities in the United States? Reputable dealers of Chinese art say their business will be largely unaffected by these new restrictions since the artifacts they trade generally have been in circulation outside of China for many years. Still, the 2009 MOU makes provenance more important than ever to the valuation and trade of Chinese antiquities.

My first trip to China was in the summer of 1980 when I was a sophmore in college. Fresh out of my eight-week intensive Chinese language course at Middlebury College,  I went  to China eager to a learn about a land that was about as foreign to a westerner as existed on planet earth.  Flying into the Beijing Airport at night, an area that was home to some five million people, there were few lights to be seen. On the drive from the airport to Beijing you could just make out in the darkness, horse-drawn carts, bicyclers and pedestrians. Taxis, cars and buses were few and far between.  It was July and very hot and as we entered the city, we saw people lying on make-shift beds on the sidewalks to escape the oppressive heat of their apartments.  No-one but the most senior member of the CCP had access to fans much less air conditioners.   Although Deng Xiaoping, who had wrested power  from the  murderous “Gang of Four”  after Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, had recently declared that “to get rich is glorious”,  access to goods was still extremely limited for both ideological and economic reasons. China had just emerged from thirty years of political tumult and  policy-induced famine and deprivations which resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people.  Conformity to the ever-shifting party line was paramount and people lived in fear of persecution should they be accused of being a “capitalist-roader”.

People dressed uniformly in blue Mao suits and caps, white cotton shirts and gray slacks or skirts  and simple black cloth shoes. The average Chinese citizen was banned from the few fancy hotels, restaurants and “Friendship” stores that had sprung up to service  foreign visitors and high-ranking cadres.  To ensure that contact between foreign visitors and the Chinese citizenry was kept to a minimum, foreigners were issued Foreign Exchange Currency (FEC) rather than the domestic currency , the renminbi or  “ People’s Money’ ‘. Only FEC was accepted in officially sanctioned places of business.   The people of  China were still so isolated from the rest of the world that everywhere I and others in my group went,  people would stop in their tracks and stare at us,  dumbfounded. When I  attempted to sputter out a few phrases  of simple Chinese,  huge groups of people would gather around me mouths hanging open in wonderment as if I were a trained animal in a circus act.  It was at once alarming and exhilarating to be considered so exotic. Thus marked the beginning of my  fascination with China. 

Flash forward  more than 25 years later and Beijing has been transformed into a garishly-lit, traffic-congested, modern city,  which hosted the spectacular 2008 Olympic games. Billboards advertise cell phones and computers, cosmetic surgery and theme parks. There are  SUVs and high-rises, department stores and shopping districts rivaling Rodeo Drive. Teenagers, their hair streaked brown and blond, dress in the latest distressed jeans and designer knock-offs. They watch Asia MTV, Hollywood movies and text-message each other like their counterparts the world over. Karaoke bars and restaurants, art galleries and auction houses have sprung up to meet the pent-up demand of the newly formed middle class,  rich and super-rich. Although this group is still but a small proportion of the 1.3 billion population, the wealth generated is considerable. Indeed, it seems that the much heralded era of the dragon has arrived.    The on-going transformation of China’s economy from an agrarian socialist based system to a post-industrial, consumer-based one has stimulated a renewed interest in China’s cultural heritage among its educated populace, something that had been ruthlessly suppressed under Mao Zedong. 

Many of China’s major art museums have been rebuilt and updated, and those in China with disposable income  are beginning to collect antiques, the art of Chinese  old masters  and artifacts. Up until very recently the primary market for Chinese jade, porcelain, classical ink painting and calligraphy,  decorative arts and furniture, burial objects, textiles etc… were Euro-American, Japanese, and Taiwanese collectors.  But now the market is being driven by collectors in mainland China. The internal antiquities market is 25 times the U.S. market. Gallery owners from Shanghai and Beijing make regular trips to the United States and Europe to scour galleries and attend auctions for their mainland clients.  The revenue of Mainland China auction houses like China Guardian now easily surpasses that of Sotheby’s and Christie’s in their sales of Chinese art. Moreover, the United States recently reached an agreement with China banning the import of antiquities before the end of the Tang Period (907 C.E.) as well as monumental sculpture and wall art over 250 years old. This will further concentrate the Chinese art market in Asia. 

Until very recently there were no independent galleries or museums, only  government run institutions. All artists worked for the state producing officially sanctioned paintings and sculptures that glorified the revolution and the party.

Now there is an explosion of independent museums and art galleries, auction houses, biennials and triennials. The “alternative art scene” is openly thriving.  Mainland Chinese artists are producing some of the most exciting work in the world today,  attracting attention from international art critics and buyers. Artists from China are now well-represented at international shows of contemporary art such as the Venice Biennale.

Instead of working in traditional media of oil and ink painting and sculpture, the Chinese vanguard are producing photographs, videos, installation and performance art, taking as  their subject issues of globalization and consumption,  social and cultural change, and China’s identity in the world.  Although buyers for contemporary art have primarily been collectors outside of mainland China,  the potential for growth will ultimately come from the new generation of Chinese middle-class as it becomes educated by the rapidly expanding independent art system.  This holds true for all aspects of the art market.   Of course, the current global economic crisis is dealing a sharp blow to China’s burgeoning art market. Nonetheless the lid is off and China’s cultural renaissance will continue once the economy’s engine is restarted.

Emerging art markets, like emerging stock markets, made astronomical gains in the past 4-5 years. And Chinese contemporary art, in particular, was among the most overheated markets. Between January 2004 and January 2009 the price index of Chinese contemporary art rose 583% (artprice, Art Market Insight [Feb 2009],  reaching its high-water mark in Spring of 2008 when Christie’s auction in Hong Kong realised sales of US$310.7 million. In recent years, Chinese artists have made up one third of the top 100 contemporary artists ranked by auction revenue, and Chinese contemporary art has been a quarter of the global market. Cai Guo-Qiang, Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang and Zeng Fanzhi are among the top artists contributing to this extraordinary price acceleration. Their works regularly broke records for the most paid for a Chinese living artist.  At the Sotheby’s Hong Kong sale of the Estella Collection on April 9th, 2008, Zhang Xiaogang’s painting Bloodline: The Big Family No. 3 fetched US$6.1 million (HK$47.4 million) including fees,  a record for the artist.  This price was eclipsed shortly thereafter at Christie’s Hong Kong May 24th auction when Zeng Fanzhi’s painting, Mask Series (1996) no. 6,  was sold for US$9,673,165 million (including fees).

However, in the wake of the unfolding global financial crisis and deep recession, a sharp correction is underway. At the autumn auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in Hong Kong, collectors were very selective in terms of price and quality, resulting in record bought-in rates. Illustrative of this sea-change is the two-part sale of the controversial Estella Collection of contemporary Chinese art organized by art dealer William Acquavella . Eight months after acquiring it from an investment group, he put the first half up for sale at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in April, 2008.  Valued at US$12 million the collection realized close to $18 million with 98 of the 108 artworks sold. The second half of the sale in September, which coincided with the Lehman bankruptcy, saw only 64 percent of lots sold. At Christie’s autumn auctions in Hong Kong revenues were US$146 million, roughly half of their Spring, 2008 sales and 43% of their lots were unsold.

So what does the future hold? According to the research company, ArtTactic, Ltd. which has formulated a Chinese Art Market Confidence Indicator based on a survey of 62 collectors, auction houses and dealers, prices will continue to fall in the next half year. Moreover, the market for top performers like Zhang Xiaogang, Zeng Fanzhi and Yue Minjun, all painters, will continue to weaken. Instead,  short-term confidence is placed in well-known, mixed-media artists such as Cai Guoqiang, Zhang Huan and Ai Weiwei.

Stay tuned…

At Thompson & Martinez Fine Art Appraisals, Inc. our appraisals conform to the latest requirements of the IRS, the Appraisal Foundation’s Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP), and the American Society of Appraisers. These standards provide our clients with the highest degree of reliability and accuracy in valuation, and provide a sound basis for the management of fine art assets. In preparing charitable donation appraisals, the IRS requires appraisers to obtain specific information from both the donor and the donee. The following is based on our understanding of current published IRS requirements. Please consult a tax specialist in the case of any questions particular to your situation.

• The IRS stipulates that in order to qualify as a charitable donation for tax purposes, the donated property must be contributed to a qualified non-profit organization. The donated property also must be relevant to the charitable purpose for which the organization was established. Please make sure your donation meets these requirements, and understand that we must ask you if these requirements are met.

• The IRS also requires that the donee organization agrees to retain the donation for a minimum period. It also requires notification if there are any conditions made on the donation, as any conditions may have an impact on the valuation. We are required to ask you, and the donee organization, these questions.

• The IRS requires that the charitable contribution be appraised no more than 60 days prior to the date of donation. Please provide the date or anticipated date of donation. This date will be used as date of valuation.

• The IRS requires that we use Fair Market Value to establish the value of the charitable contribution, and that when appropriate, valuation is based on completed and documented sales in the most common market where the property that is the charitable donation is bought and sold. With the exception of very unusual circumstances, we cannot use estimates or offered prices, but must base our conclusions on recorded sales.

• The IRS stipulates that in order for the donor to receive full benefit for the charitable donation, he or she must own it for at least one year. Otherwise the valuation of the property will be limited to whichever is the lesser, Fair Market Value or cost basis (the amount paid to acquire the property).

• Please provide all documents relating to the work(s). These might include purchase invoices, prior appraisals, auction and exhibition catalogs, or any literature or information regarding public exhibition of the work, references in magazines, books, etc. Please also provide certificates of authenticity and proof of ownership, and any information you may have or be able to obtain on the history of the work’s ownership

• In order to obtain the tax benefit of the charitable donation, you will need to file IRS Form 8283 with your tax return. We will fill out Section B, Part 1, where the property is described, and Part III, Declaration of the Appraiser, both on page 2. We are not responsible for the balance of the form, and request that you or your accountant make plans to complete it.

The Empress’ New Clothes: A Daoist Ordination Scroll in the San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA) and Female Authority in the Ming Period

(Paper presented at the Association of Asian Studies National Conference, Washington, D.C, April, 2002)
by Lydia Thompson, Ph.D.

Some images currently not available

Introduction

In 1493 the monumental hand-scroll commemorating Ming Empress Zhang’s ordination as a Daoist priest was completed. Unrolling to ninety-two feet long, the scale of this hand-scroll is comparable to another famous imperial hand-scroll commemorating Zhang’s nephew and political nemesis the Jiajing Emperor’s (r. 1522-66) procession to the Ming Tombs (c. 1550). The ordination scroll, now in the collection of the San Diego Museum of Art, features a portrait of the Empress in the company of fifty-two deities and adepts floating amongst the clouds (Figure 1, first large-scale figure at left). In the center of the hand-scroll is a long inscription by Empress Zhang’s teacher, Zhang Xuanqing (d. 1509), 47th patriarch of the Zhengyi sect, who is also represented in the scroll wearing a red robe to the right of the Empress. The inscription details the scriptures, registers (lists of gods) and talismans giving her access to deities and cosmic forces.

The deities under her control are also represented pictorially and identified by gold lettering. They include: the twelve celestial generals and jade maidens of the zodiac, generals in charge of guarding the four quarters of the universe (Figure 2) and generals who control natural forces such as thunder and rain, and thwart supernatural forces like ghosts and demons. To be ordained as a Daoist priest is a kind of certification of one’s ability to harness these powers on behalf of oneself and others, leading to immortality for the individual, salvation for the dead and cosmic harmony. In essence, access to these deities represent Zhang’s ability to control the forces of the universe.

Empress Zhang is shown as the latest master in a long line of Celestial Master adepts and priests (Figure 3). Only her mentor and author of the inscription, Zhang Xuanqing , supersede her.¹ Empress Zhang’s investiture as a Daoist Master is not mentioned in the records of the Ming or in her official biography which provides standard biographical information about her birthplace, the names and ranks of her mother and father, when she became Empress and the Empress Dowager and the various titles conferred upon her and her family. However, the biography does open with a description of her miraculous conception: her mother dreamed that the light of the moon entered her womb, and upon this the future Empress was conceived.² The description of her conception as a kind of divine manifestation of the yin force is trope found in hagiographies of female religious figures of the time and alludes to her divine status.³

The scale of the scroll indicates the importance she attached to her ordination, and it is telling that the official histories avoided mention of the event. As a document of this event, the scroll raises questions about her motivation in adopting this religious persona. What social and gender roles are being manipulated by her portrait and placement within the pantheon? Which pictorial conventions does she draw upon? Which ones does she avoid? What role, if any did her ordination and the hand-scroll play in constructing an image of authority?

Female Imperial Ordination and Patronage

Empress Zhang’s ordination comes in a long line of imperial ordinations, stretching back to the Northern Wei in the 5th-6th centuries AD. However, the functions of Daoist ordinations differed for imperial men and women. For Emperors, being invested with powers over deities in the heavenly realm implicitly justifies their power in the human realm. As Anna Seidel has shown, the regalia and procedures of imperial Daoist investiture ceremonies have “a common origin and basic affinity”, each serving as metaphors of power for the other.⁴

Imperial women, on the other hand, were ordained for very different reasons: most often to avoid marriage, escape political turmoil and as an act of filial piety. In a fundamentally filial gesture, Tang Empress Wu Zetian (r. 690-705, d. 705) had her daughter ordained as a Daoist priest as a way to accrue merit for her recently deceased mother. In medieval China it was common for descendants to undertake pious acts to accrue merit on behalf of an ancestor so that the deceased’s soul would obtain release from Hell and enter the “Elysian Fields”; a notion of hell and mechanism of salvation that Daoism borrowed from Buddhism.⁵ According to Tang records, Wu Zetian’s granddaughters were ordained for several reasons: as a filial gesture, as a way to avoid marriage, to escape the vicious politics of the Tang court and to accrue merit for Wu Zetian upon her death. Tang Emperor, Xuanzong (r. 713) had the consort of his son, the infamous beauty, Yang Guifei, ordained as a Daoist nun as a way to break up the union. After the son developed another attraction, Yang Guifei left the abbey to join Xuanzong’s harem.⁶

Catherine Bell, has argued that ritual activities in particular should not be viewed as separate from the power structure, but as a producer of and negotiator in power relations”.⁷ Zhang’s investiture as a Daoist priest and the scroll which documents and commemorates it, falls into centuries of tradition in which ambitious imperial women use religion and its monuments to negotiate for power.⁸ The more gender neutral doctrines of Buddhism and Daoism provided ambitious imperial women with the possibility of transcending the circumscribed role as Empress and asserting their authority as a spiritually powerful being. This is something that Confucian ideology, with its emphasis on filial piety prohibited. For women, filial piety implied that daughters must defer to their father and wives to their husband, the Empress to Emperor. Empress Zhang (1470-1541), who, during her own lifetime was caught up in controversies surrounding her role as Empress Dowager, may well have been aware of how past empresses dealt with these issues and drawn upon these strategies. Indeed several important religious sites which owed their existence to powerful Empresses of the past, remained in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Among the earliest examples are the Northern Wei (386-534) Buddhist cave-temples at Longmen and Gong county sponsored by Empresses and their husbands. In their role as benefactresses of these important monuments, these Imperial women had considerable influence in shaping the Chinese Buddhist tradition at its very inception.⁹ The earliest known representations of Empresses are also found at these cave-temples. At the. Almost life-size, (1.93 meters), the empress’ procession occupied one side of the entrance (Figure 4) while a matching relief depicting the emperor as donor occupied the other. Cave 1 at Gong county is even more pertinent since work began on it after Xuanwu’s death, during Empress Ling’s regency (c. 517-23) suggesting that she spearheaded the project. In this scene Empress Dowager Ling leads the procession of attendants and noble ladies (Figure 5). The central figure’s larger scale indicates her status as empress. In the dynasties that followed, this pictorial convention of a larger-scale figure in three-quarter view accompanied by an entourage becomes a standard public image of both imperial men and women, and is a convention used in the Ming ordination scroll (Figure 1 & 6).¹⁰

Wu Zetian (r. 692-705) of the Tang, who famously proclaimed herself Emperor was also a vigorous sponsor and patron of a variety of religious monuments and projects.¹¹ The most prominent example of her sponsorship are the giant figures at Fengxiansi at Longmen. The central figure dressed in simple monk’s garb, with elongated ears and ushnisha is the Cosmic Buddha Vairocana (Figure 7).¹² The Buddha is accompanied by two guardians; heavenly kings dressed in Chinese military garb (trampling on a demon) and Indian dress respectively assume protective postures. Commissioned by Empress Wu in 675, five years after the Tibetans had captured the Silk Route city of Anxi in 670 these figures may have been viewed as talismans, protecting the Tang empire from the threat to the west. Moreover, sponsorship of the Cosmic Buddha serves to identify Wu Zetian and Gaozong with a deity which, in the esoteric tradition, is the source of all things in the universe. Upon declaring herself emperor in 692, Wu Zetian further identified herself with the spiritual power of a Buddhist deity when she circulated the Great Cloud Sutra which predicted imminent reincarnation of the Buddhist Maitreya as a female monarch. Empress Wu also associated herself with the mother of the legendary first Lord of Jin in the Zhou dynasty. Representing loyalty to the state and the ideal of smooth succession, a temple was established to him near the Jin River in Shaanxi as early as the Tang. A shrine to his mother Shengmu or Sage Mother, was also established and she was revered as the source of protectors of the state and nation-builder, among other things. In 688, Empress Wu adopted the sobriquet, Shengmu, casting herself as both transcendent sage and protector of the state.¹³ The title Shengmu was used by subsequent Empresses including Empress Zhang.¹⁴

Pierre Bourdieu has drawn a distinction between `official power’, that is the type of power that men have historically monopolized and `dominated power’ the type of power historically held by women. He writes that even when women do wield the real power, “ as is often the case in matrimonial matters, they can exercise it fully only on the
condition that they leave the appearance of power, that is, its official manifestation, to the men…” The point here is that even though women’s power operates by proxy, it is nonetheless real.¹⁵ This aptly describes the nature of political power available to imperial women in general and Empress Zhang in particular. Empress Zhang’s life at court extended 50 years over three reigns (d. 1541) as wife of the Hongzhi Emperor (r. 1488-1505), mother of the Zhengde emperor (r. 1506-1521), and “Imperial Aunt” of the Jiajing emperor (Slide of Empress Zhang in the scroll).

For imperial women, the greatest opportunity for power came when they achieved the rank of Empress Dowager (huang taihou), that is when their sons ascended to the throne. This was especially true when the Empress Dowager acted as regent to an underage Emperor. It was this perennial problem, often referred to as a “female disaster” nu huo that the Confucian officials and
historians warned against in the annals of political history.¹⁶ It was this very problem that the founder of the Ming dynasty sought to address when he issued an edict in 1368 forbidding empresses from becoming regents and otherwise taking part in governmental affairs.¹⁷ According to official biographies of palace women, no empress acted as regent in the Ming period.¹⁸

Regardless of the official biographies it appears that Empress Zhang was a force to be reckoned with. Later writings by men of letters, criticize Empress Zhang for all the standard reasons: her overweening influence during the reign of her husband and son, and the promotion and protection of her venal and undeserving relatives.¹⁹ They further tell us that her life and times at court had become a cautionary tale of what happens when an Empress Dowager acquires too much influence and power. A sixteenth century poem by Wang Shizhen (1526-1590) describes the exploits of Zhang’s brothers who had undeservedly been granted titles and land, and abused the people under their control. He further writes that although officials and members of the court regarded Zhang’s family with disdain, they were unable to punish them, elliptically laying the blame at the feet of Empress Dowager Zhang writing: “In the past, Empress Dowagers, lords and officials followed the the way of kings. When there are no relatives, it is a great virtue. When there is no virtue, how can one remonstrate?” ²⁰

The Life and Times of Empress Zhang

Empress Zhang’s bad press likely stems from her role in the crisis of succession known at the Great Ritual Controversy which played out over a five year period from 1522-1527. Upon the death of her husband the Emperor Hongzhi in 1505, her son, Emperor Zhengde takes the throne at the age of fourteen.²¹ In 1509, Zhang becomes Empress Dowager achieving the pinnacle of female power. When the Zhengde emperor dies at age twenty-nine without an heir, the Empress Dowager and high official Grand Secretary Yang Tinghao select her young nephew, age thirteen to become emperor. As was the norm in such cases, it was assumed that the boy would become the Empress’ and the late Hongzhi Emperor’s adoptive son, thus ensuring a smooth succession and maintaining her role as Empress Dowager. By aligning herself with Yang Tinghao, it is likely that Empress Zhang was making a bid to act as regent if not in name at least in deed. However, the emperor-to-be refuses to become Zhang’s adoptive son, and insists that his own mother should be made Empress Dowager. This sets in motion the biggest crisis of succession in the Ming dynasty, known as the Great Ritual Controversy.²² After five years of struggle between different factions at court, the Jiajing emperor prevails, and, in 1527, Empress Zhang is stripped of the title Huanghou, receiving instead the title Huangbomu or Imperial Aunt. Despite the title change, as later accounts attest, the indefatigable Zhang was still perceived as a threat as we shall see in a late section.

Ordination Scroll

The scroll is evidence of the political maneuverings of her early life. According to the inscription, her investiture took place over a period of seven months and was completed in the 7th month of sixth year of Hongzhi’s reign (1493)²⁴ when she was twenty-three.²³ Seen in the context of Zhang’s biography, the date of the scroll and her ordination, 1493, is significant. Six years after Zhang becomes Empress and one year after giving birth to a son, the future Zhengde Emperor, the Empress is looking forward to her role as Empress Dowager. The completion of her investiture also coincides with her birthday celebration which occurred in seventh month of the sixth year of the Hongzhi reign (1493). Thus the scroll likely had two purposes: to commemorate both her investiture and her birthday. Evidence that the scroll commemorated her birthday include the conventional birthday phrases wishing her long life and prosperity in the main inscription, and the giant stenciled inscriptions in the middle of the scroll “Increasing Prosperity and Ten Thousand Longevities, to Exist as Long as the Heavens”.²⁵ Daoist figures of which there are obviously many in the scroll were commonly pictured on presentation gifts to convey best wishes for longevity.²⁶ Moreover, items such as the lingzhi fungi and mountain rock carried by the empress’ entourage are auspicious symbols of longevity, and lacquer boxes such as the one held by one attendant, were often used to present birthday gifts (Figure 6).²⁷ The Veritable Records of Hongzhi’s reign tells us that a grand feast was held in her honor at the Meridian Gate at the Forbidden City and was attended by relatives and officials. It is possible that the hand-scroll was presented to her at that time. It is also possible that her investiture and the commissioning of this scroll were deliberately timed to be completed by her birthday and serving as a public document of her self-image and ambitions.

The mid-late Ming is a period noted for number and popularity of female deities, nuns and visionaries, as well as the vigorous sponsorship by imperial women of Buddhist, Daoist and sectarian cults. In devising her religious persona, Empress Zhang seems to have avoided identifying herself with some of the most popular female deities of the day such as Guanyin, Bixia Yuanjun (the Sovereign of the Clouds of Dawn) (Figure , the Lady of the Highest Primordial and Houtu, Empress of the Earth (Figure 9). To convey divine authority, the representations of such deities draw upon the conventions of imperial portraiture (Figure 10). The Sovereign of the Clouds of Dawn is seated on a throne in a frontal, symmetrical pose with knees apart and feet showing, holding a jade tablet. She wears formal imperial robes, a headdress studded with phoenixes, a symbol of female imperial power, and is surrounded by a female entourage which as we have seen connotes imperial status.²⁸ The image of Empress Zhang in the ordination scroll does utilize some of the conventions of imperial portraiture: she is accompanied by the familiar entourage first seen in Northern Wei Buddhist caves, and floats among the beautiful multi-colored clouds signifying a Daoist paradise. However, she avoids the encoded robes and imperial setting which points to her role as Empress, which in turn implies a male counterpart the emperor who overrides her authority. It is also telling that her youth and beauty are underplayed in her portrait. Only twenty-three at the time of her ordination, Zhang’s portrait is a-sexual and ageless. The androgynous quality of her representation is pointed up by her attendants who are the very picture of youthful female beauty: they have plump faces and rosy complexions, rosebud lips, and sport the fancy hairstyles and fashions of court ladies (Compare Figure 1 and Figure 6). The severity of her portrait is also made plain when compared to some to the lovely lady deities we have seen. Though of regal bearing, the Sovereign of the Clouds of Dawn is depicted as young and beautiful and oozes feminine charm. Kenneth Pomeranz has noted that the feminine allure of Bixia Yuanjun was problematic since female sexual power undermines the ideal Confucian roles for women such as the virtuous mother or chaste daughter. This led to cults like that of Bixia Yuanjun ` being labeled as “heterodox’ and “lewd” by the Ming gate-keepers of ritual orthodoxy.²⁹ In downplaying her own youth and beauty, it may be that Empress Zhang wanted to avoid any taint of heterodoxy that went along with such cults. Finally, deities like Bixia Yuanjun who were worshiped as the granter and protector of children and the elderly attracted a primarily female following. Empress Zhang had larger ambitions: she wanted to appeal to not only women, but to the male political elite as well.

The Empress is represented with a simple hairstyle and wearing the robe and cap of a Daoist priest. She is distinguishable from her male counterparts only by the absence of facial hair, a halo and the thick white pigment coloring her face. There is only one other female master, identified by inscription as Zhengyi Nushi, Female Master of the Zhengyi sect, included, presumably, to establish a precedent for female patriarchs (Figure 3, Nushi is the figure on the far right). In a bid to make Celestial Master Daoism acceptable as state ideology, the 43rd Celestial Master who lived in the mid-15th century made a case for the compatibility of Confucianism and Daoism, and emphasized moral and upright qualities of Daoist priests. Therefore in aligning herself with Celestial Master priests by obscuring her femininity and adopting the demeanor of the primarily male lineage, Empress Zhang wants to project unassailable moral integrity. In the end, Zhang is represented as one of the boys, so-to-speak, the latest in a long line of Daoist priests and adepts. Her image, therefore, is more suggestive of the illusory nature of gender and the possibility of transcending her limited role as a woman and as an Empress.

Although the most obvious pictorial model for Zhang’s image is found in the scroll’s representation of members of the Celestial Master patrilineage, there are also female models that she may have drawn upon: Buddhist nuns and Daoist female masters . An imperially commissioned hanging scroll, dating to 1454 depicts Buddhist and Daoist nuns of the past and was included in a set of scrolls used in the Water and Land Ritual, a comprehensive ritual which invoked all of the deities of heaven and earth (Figure 11). Like the Empress’ portrait, the signs of their femininity are barely evident. And, like the Empress, their expressions are calm, meditative, appropriate for a transcendent.

The active support of a variety of Buddhist and Daoist temples by ladies of the court indicate that nuns and female Daoist masters served as role models. Empress Zhang and other members of the inner court are particularly associated with the nuns of a temple that lay on the outskirts of Peking, the Baomingsi, or “Protecting the Ming Temple”. The temple was established some time in the mid to late fifteenth century to honor a nun named Lu (d. 1489) who, as legend had it, came to Ming Emperor Yingzong in a vision to warn him against a disastrous military campaign.³⁰ He initially ignored this vision which led to his capture by the Mongols. While in captivity she came to him frequently offering him food and water. Released by the Mongols in 1450 he returned to Beijing only to be placed under house arrest. Again the nun appeared to him. Upon being restored to the throne seven years later Emperor Yingzong donated funds to build a temple in her honor, bestowing upon her the title “Imperial Younger Sister”. Nun Lu was later respectfully called “Imperial Aunt” and the temple became known as the Temple of the Imperial Aunt (Huanggu si).³¹This story provides a possible source for the title of Imperial Aunt bestowed upon Empress Zhang by the Jiajing Emperor (r. 1522-1566).

Steles dating to 1532 and an inscription on a bell dating to 1533 cast for the temple tell us that Empress Zhang and her members of her family provided financial support for the temple, donating funds in 1498. Moreover, they make clear that she had a close personal relationship with head Abbess Yang who had succeeded Nun Lu in 1489 just four years before Zhang’s investiture in 1493. Yang is described as Zhang’s teacher and it is noted that the Empress personally arranged for the abbess’ burial in 1530.³²

There was a mysterious fragrance (as this nun died) eighty-one years from her birth…The Empress Dowager heard and ordered offerings made. Princesses such as Yongchun (Empress Zhang’s daughter) and eunuchs such as Mr. Wang…received their teacher’s golden body and buried it behind the temple.³³

By adopting the persona of a Daoist nun in 1493 Empress Zhang may have deliberately associated herself with the nuns of Protecting the Ming Temple in order to cast herself as a protector of the Ming state. The fact that Abbess Yang and her temple were Buddhist did not dissuade Empress Zhang from dubbing the temple a “Daoist Premises”.

When she was just 10 sui, Jinxi (Nun Yang) took as her teacher the founder and first generation abbess Lu…The Empress Dowager ( Zhang) admired her supernatural aura and could not help thinking of her. She specially bestowed on her an edict giving [the temple] the title, Daoyuan (Daoist premise)…

The ecumenical nature of the Baomingsi temple appears to have continued into the following century: a 17th century poem describes the Baomingsi as a place where Buddhists and Daoists mix.³⁴

In 1527 the Jiajing emperor issued an edict eliminating Buddhist nuns and female Daoists and proposing that their temples and land be confiscated by the state. The Baomingsi temple was at the top of the emperor’s list. Explaining why he wanted to close the prominent Baomingsi temple: “He [privately] explained that he could not accept the claim that the nun who was the patriarch of this temple had somehow protected the dynasty.³⁵ He strongly objected to the name “Temple of the Imperial Aunt”. How could it be said that “one wizard nun was able to protect the Ming dynasty?” This suggests that Empress Zhang’s religious associations were perceived as a political threat; that the Jiajing emperor was irked not simply by the temple, but by its association both in name and in person with his powerful aunt, the Empress Zhang. His bitterness must have stemmed from what he believed to be Empress Zhang’s posturing as protector of the state, and the threat that posed to his own authority. In the 17th century a literati by the name of Zha Sili alludes to the Great Ritual Controversy and Empress Zhang’s attempt to adopt the Jiajing Emperor: “The name Imperial Aunt is extremely inappropriate. Who used the incident of the nun remonstrating against the northern campaigns? Adding an extra princess to all of the queen mothers, So that even the emperors had to be her nephews?”³⁶ In the end, the Baomingsi temple was spared, due no doubt to the powerful patronage of his “Imperial Aunt” Zhang and his mother, the Empress Dowager.

The Empress’ representation in the ordination scroll manipulates social and gender roles, presenting her in a male role and as the protector of the state. Zhang’s adoption of a Daoist persona, as seen in the ordination scroll falls in a tradition of powerful imperial women leveraging religious personas, ideologies and rituals in their negotiations for political power. Depicted as a Daoist master she transcends her gender, projects moral authority, designing a persona designed to appeal to the political elite. Her image also resonates with contemporary female religious figures, particularly the abbesses of the Baomingsi whose sect were associated with the power of protecting the Ming state. The ordination scroll makes it clear that the motivation for her ordination falls in the male tradition of asserting political authority rather than the female tradition of filial deference and escape. At the Ming court, Celestial Master Daoism represented the orthodoxy, and was viewed as ideally suited to aiding the ruler in administering the state. In undergoing a public investiture ceremony and commissioning a scroll to commemorate it, Zhang makes an audacious claim of her fitness to head the state. Her ordination as documented by the scroll implicitly challenges the imperial power structure which denies imperial women the right to rule. Produced at the beginning of a long life, the ordination scroll maps out a political strategy for her own power and authority; one that was to serve her well over three reigns.

1 This includes Yuanshi Tianzun, Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning, one of Daoism’s highest gods established in the Tang, when it became the state religion. See Little, p. 183 and Kohn, 1998a, p. 59
2 See Empress Zhang’s biography in Ming shi,, vol. 12, j. 115, liezhuan 3, p. 3528.
3 An example is Tan Yangzi, a sixteenth century mystic and teacher. Tan’s disciple and biographer, the literati luminary Wang Shizhen wrote that Master Tan was conceived after a disc of moonlight entered the bed of her mother. Ann Waltner, “T’an Yang-tzu and Wang Shih-chen: Visionary and Bureaucrat in the Late Ming”, Late Imperial China Vol. 8, no. 1 (June 1987), p. 109.
4 Stephen Little, Daoism and the Art of China, (Chicago and Berkeley: Art Institute of Chicago and University of California Press, 2000), p. 20; Anna Seidel, “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments: Taoist Roots in Apocrypha” Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of R.A. Stein, edited by Michel Strickmann, vol. 2: 291-371. (Brussels: Institut Belge des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1983), p. 368.
5 Charles Benn, The Cavern-Mystery Transmission: A Taoist Ordination Rite of A.D. 711 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991), p. 10.
6 Ibid. pp. 8-12.
7 Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1992), 196
8 A particularly pertinent article is Liu Heping’s article on Song Empress Liu and her use of the Buddhist cult of Maitreya in her bid for power. He Liuping, Empress Liu’s Icon of Maitreya: Portraiture and Privacy at the Early Song Court” Artibus Asiae, vol. XLIII, no. 2, 2003, pp. 129-183.
9 See Dorothy Wong , “Women as Buddhist Art Patrons during the Northern and Southern Dynasties” Between Han and Tang: Religious Art and Archaeology in a Transformative Period (Beijing: Wenwu press, 2000), p. 535.
10 Ibid.
11 Antonino Forte, Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the end of the Seventh Century Naples, Istituto Univ. Orientale, 1976. For a discussion of Empress Wu’s policies as proto-feminist sentiment, see Chen Jo-shui, “Empress Wu and Proto-feminist Sentiments in T’ang China”, Imperial Rulership and Cultural Change in Traditional China (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1994), pp. 77-116.
12 See Chen Jo-shui, “Empress Wu”, p. 89; R.W.L. Guisso, Wu Ts’e-t’ien, pp. 37-46, 66-8; Antonino Forte, Political Propaganda
and Ideology in China at the end of the Seventh Century (Naples, 1976), Cambridge Illustrated History of China, 116.
13 Amy McNair, “On the Date of the Shengmudian Sculptures at Jinci” Artibus Asiae, 49 (1988-89), 238-53, 244; Tracy Miller, Art Bulletin, March, 2004.
14 See Empress Zhang’s biography in Ming shi,, vol. 12, j. 115, liezhuan 3, p. 3528. The title was bestowed upon her in the 15th year of the Jiajing reign.
15 For a summary of this, see Dorothy Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford U.P., 1994) pp. 10-11; Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (1977) , 41.
16 For a discussion of “usurpatious regents” in early China See Lisa Raphaels, Sharing the Light: Representations of Women and Virtue in Early China (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998), pp. 61-77.
17 For a discussion of the conditions under which an Empress became regent, see Yang Lien-sheng, “Female Rulers in Imperial China” Imperial Rulership and Cultural Change in Traditional China (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1994), pp. 50-51.
18 Ibid., p. 52. 19 Carrington and Goodrich, Dictionary of Ming Biography, vol. 2, pp. 74-77.
20 Wang Shizhen, “Shouning qi” , Yuefu bian, Yanzhou shanren sibu kao (Taibei: Weiwen tu shu chubanshe, 1976), pp. 745-746.
21 Hongzhi’s reputation as a monogamist was compromised by a persistent rumour that a maid, the daughter of a soldier named Zheng
Wang, was the Zhengde Emperor’s actual mother. This rumour is finally quelled in 1507 when Zheng Wang, thought to be the source of the rumor, is executed. DMB, vol. 2, p. 379
22 Carney Thomas Fisher, “The Great Ritual Controversy in Ming China” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1977.
23 Daoism and the Arts of China, pp. 208-213.
24 This was first noted by Song Yu, the former Curator of the Asian collection at San Diego Museum of Art. in the museum file. See
Veritable Records of the Ming, Ming Shilu, Xiaozong.
25 Ibid. Little.
26 For a discussion of art commissioned for specific occasions, including birthdays, see Craig Clunas, Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997) 57-76; Jerome Silbergeld, “Chinese Concepts of Old Age and their Role in Chinese Painting Theory and Criticism” Art Journal, XLVI/2 (1987), 103-14; Ellen Johnston Laing, “Sixteenth-Century Patterns of Patronage: Qiu Ying and the Xiang Family”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, CXI/I (1991), pp. 1-7.
27 Ibid. Clunas, pp. 61-63.
28 Bixia yuanjun’s companion deities include: Yanguang Niangnian (goddess of eyesight), who held an eye, Zisun niangniang who held a baby. Also 6 others in charge of the stages of childbearing; pregnancy, nourishing the embryo, hastening the birth, nursing, avoiding smallpox etc. See Kenneth Pomeranz, “Power, Gender and Pluralism in the Cult of the Goddess of Taishan”, Theodore Huters, R. Bin Wong, and Pauline Yu eds., Culture and State in Chinese History: Conventions, Accomodations, and Critiques (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997) pp. 182-204.
29 Ibid. p. 184.
30 Carney Fisher believes that the evidence argues strongly for the establishment of the Baoming temple during the Hongzhi reign by the Zhang family rather than the Chenghua era (1462). Regardless, imperial protection and exemptions were extended significantly during the Hongzhi reign. Li, Thomas Shuyi, Susan Naquin“The Baoming Temple: Religion and the Throne in Ming and Qing China” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 48 (1988): p. 135.
31 Ibid. pp. 134.
32 Born 1450, Yang became abbess in 1489 after Lu’s death. Nine years later in 1498, Empress Zhang donated money to the Buddhist temple. Ibid. “The Baoming Temple”, pp. 137-139.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid. pp. 136-137.
35 Ming shilu, Jiajing 6/12/9, ch. 83, 8-9; Jiuwenkao, 1619.
36 Ibid. “The Baoming Temple”, pp. 148-149.