With more than 7,500 items, The Field Museum's Chinese rubbings collection is often considered one the best outside of East Asia. The nucleus of this collection was acquired by the well-known scholar Berthold Laufer (1874–1934), who was Curator of Asian Ethnology in the Department of Anthropology at the Museum. Laufer astutely recognized the uniqueness and significance of rubbings in Chinese studies even though rubbings were not yet recognized in the West as a valuable part of Chinese culture. Leading an ethnological expedition to China on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City from 1901 to 1904, Laufer collected 3,360 rubbings taken by skilled Chinese workers at his request. Laufer's collection was given to him by the American Museum of Natural History when he left New York to join The Field Museum in 1907. From 1907 to 1911 and again in 1923, Laufer undertook expeditions to China for The Field Museum, during which he acquired several thousand additional rubbings. This collection was later expanded through the gift of the David C. Graham collection, an important series of rubbings from Sichuan province that were originally obtained from West China Union University (Chengdu, Sichuan).

Learn more about the life and work of Laufer.

At present, The Field Museum's collection may be the largest and most comprehensive in the western world featuring not only a great variety of rubbings but a number of rare and important pieces. For example, the museum has a complete set of rubbings (Field Museum 244096.a-j) from the earliest known stone inscriptions from the Qin Dynasty (221–210 B.C.) This group of ten stones, each with a four word per verse poem, depicts the Qin emperor's hunting adventures. Additionally, some rubbings feature famous Han Dynasty sites such as the Wuliang Shrine in Shandong province and the Confucius Temple in Qufu, Shandong. There also are several rubbings with artistic images of local lifestyles in Sichuan province from Han period tomb stones. Furthermore, the Museum has many rubbings with Buddhist inscriptions from the caves at the famous site of Longmen, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Luoyang city, Henan province that dates between 424 and 907 A.D.

While most of the rubbings were made during the later Qing Dynasty, a few are rare rubbings that were actually taken during the Song (960–1279 A.D.) and Ming (1368–1644 A.D.) periods. One of the rarest rubbings is part of the collection of the Lan Ting Xu; the inscription is from an essay written by Wang Xizhi (321–379 A.D.). From You Si's collection assembled during the Song Dynasty, this Song rubbing was owned successively by such famous collectors as Prince Jin (Ming Dynasty), Prince Cheng Qinwang (1752–1823, Qing Dynasty), and Chen Jieqi (1813–1884, Qing Dynasty). Other examples of early rubbings include the collection from a re-cut stone of Lan Ting Xu (The Preface to the Orchid Pavilion, Collection of Poems), Kuai Xue Tang Fa Shu (Book of Model Writings from the Kuaixue Hall), and Chun Hua Ge Fa Tie (Model Writings in the Imperial Archives of the Chunhua Era). These rubbings feature legendary masters and carry seals and colophons of well-known collectors and scholars from the Song to the Qing dynasties. Such rubbings with seals and colophons of well-known collectors and scholars often include handwritten notes with comments indicating their enjoyment of the items. Some of the best notes in the Museum's collection were handwritten by Weng Fanggang (1733–1818 A.D.) and He Shaoji (1799–1873 A.D.), both outstanding calligraphers and scholars of the Qing Dynasty.

One of the most striking features of The Field Museum's collection is its diversity. Perhaps because of Laufer's interest in ethnography, the collection contains not only standard bei and tie rubbings but also rubbings of Jewish genealogy records, roof tiles, coins, swords, mosque tablets, mirrors, candlestick bases, lamp bases, iron stoves, hua xiang shi (pictorial engravings), bronze vessels, tomb reliefs, tomb bricks, stone coffin illustrations, and maps of famous temples and shrines. For example, included in the collection are rubbings taken from Judaic stone inscriptions from Kaifeng, Henan Province, dated 1489, 1512, and 1679 A.D. The collection also contains a large body of Islamic inscriptions including mosque wall tablets, commemoration inscriptions, and prayers, collected from Xi’an, Kaifeng, Beijing, Tai’an, Hangzhou, and Guangzhou (Canton). Indicative of Laufer's great linguistic skills, there are rubbings in Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan, Arabic, Sanskrit, Japanese, and Latin.

More than 100 rubbings from Beijing are grave tablet inscriptions erected for Jesuit priests buried in Beijing. These inscriptions, including Latin and Chinese, are valuable for the study of cultural exchange between Europe and China during the late Ming (1368–1644) and the Qing (1644–1911) dynasties. There are rubbings from the tomb stones of famous Jesuit priests such as Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), the founder of the Catholic mission in China.

For more information on the history and breadth of The Field Museum's rubbings collection, please see the introductory chapters of the Fieldiana catalog included on this website.


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