IMPERIAL CHINA.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Imperial edict granted to the government official Yu Shimei and written in Chinese and Manchu. A document from final weeks of the Guangxu Emperor's reign, rewarding a dedicated imperial servant with a more illustrious ancestry. Guangxu died suddenly on 14 November - recent tests suggest he was poisoned with arsenic - only two days before his possible murderer, the gravely ill Empress Dowager Cixi. Within three years, the Qing dynasty collapsed.This edict grants honour to Yu's (1856-1918) immediate forebears - a typical mechanism through which the Qing emperors repaid loyalty and strengthened the social legitimacy of the ruling official class. A native of Guangxi, Yu examined into the ranks of the Qing government in the early 1880s and became an aide of the powerful statesman Li Hongzhang. After the Boxer Uprising, he held a number of central government positions in Beijing, and in June 1908 he was promoted to a senior position (Grade 5 in the civil service rankings) in the Ministry of Personnel (Li bu).Provenance: Cornelius John Hauck (1893-1967), the American philanthropist - Donated as part of the Hauck History of the Book Collection to the Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati, Ohio (its typescript label on the red brocade cover) - Hauck Collection sale, Christie's New York, 27 June 2006, lot 20 - Purchased by Martin Schøyen (b. 1940), the Norwegian collector of rare books and manuscripts; his ink pressmarks at the head of the Manchu section and on the label on the cover, a

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