Accouterments of beauty that tell a dynasty's tale

A painting and calligraphic work by Emperor Huizong.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Sumptuous details

The gold and silver jewelry from Southern Song is characterized by simple overall designs and sumptuous details, Shi says. "While artisans from the preceding Tang Dynasty favored streamlined, minimalist designs, their Song counterparts, thanks to the advances in metal crafts, were able to draw much more vivid, delicate and sometimes three-dimensional pictures within the tiny space available."

A shift in geopolitics was also reflected in that tiny space. During Tang, a powerful and open-minded China was engaged in trade and other types of exchanges with the rest of the world, Persia for example. Consequently, jewelry from the era sometimes bore marked foreign influences, as in the Western-style designs and the use of precious stones.

Song, especially Southern Song, was known for anything but military prowess. Although maritime trade was possible - in fact, it was at its height at the time - a shrunken empire was still cut off on land from a large part of the world.

Foreign influences waned, especially in aesthetics, matters that the successive Song emperors, many of whom were great artists themselves, took very seriously. "Song represented a time when immense cultural pride and military in-confidence work together to produce a more inward-looking attitude regarding art," Shi says. "As a result, the jewelry-making was more Chinese than it had been."