Collecting the Pei Cen Stele in Qing China

Abstract This article investigates three vignettes in the collecting of the Pei Cen Stele during the eighteenth century. A Han-dynasty monument in Barköl, Xinjiang, the Pei Cen Stele tells of an unrecorded military achievement against the Xiongnu in 137. I begin by discussing how court officials used this artefact to support the Qing imperial expansion into central Asia. The second episode identifies four major types of copies of the Pei Cen Stele—facsimiles, replicas, tracing copies, and forgeries—and examines their varied functions to the epigraphic community at the time. The final section analyses the transitional style of this inscription through calligraphers’ innovative transcriptions. Appropriations of the Pei Cen Stele in these political, social, and artistic contexts, I argue, pinpoint the idea of collecting as a form of invention in the Qing dynasty. Collectors invented the Pei Cen Stele as a symbol of prosperity, a cultural relic, and a calligraphy exemplar.