The presentation of ruyi was not a one-way affair: it was often bestowed by the emperor upon his ministers or subjects. There is still a valuable collection of them in the Mansion of Confucius in Qufu, Shandong. They were given by various emperors to the descendants of the great sage.
It is still difficult to pinpoint the time of the first emergence of the ruyi, although no archaeological finds of them date from before the Qing Dynasty. They are much valued but commonly seen objects of decoration in the old Qing palaces, but outside of Beijing one rarely comes across them in provincial museums.
Editor: Xu Shenglan
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