By Sophie Becquet, McGill Visual Arts Collection Student Intern (2024-)
The Jingjiao (景教) Stele, or Xi’an Nestorian Stele, holds far more than meets the eye, bridging East and West through its cultural and religious significance and its extraordinary journeys across the globe. Erected in 781 during China’s Tang Dynasty, this 9-foot monument, inscribed in Chinese and Syriac, commemorates the arrival of Christian missionaries from Syria in 635. Emperor Taizong, who welcomed the missionaries, praised their religion as jing (景), meaning “luminous,” a term that gave rise to the name Jingjiao or “Luminous Religion.” Under his reign, this form of Christianity—shaped by the interaction of East Syriac traditions and Tang Chinese culture—flourished and became known to the West as “Nestorianism.” Over the centuries, the stele has been buried and unearthed, protected and pursued, and its story carried across continents—culminating in a McGill replica that has its own story to tell (Figure 1).[1]
The Jingjiao Stele’s first chapter ended in the 9th century, when it was buried during the Huichang Persecution, an imperial campaign that sought to eradicate minority religions, including Christianity.[2] Hidden underground for nearly 800 years, the stele resurfaced in the late Ming Dynasty. Recognizing its significance, the local governor ordered it placed on a tortoise pedestal and protected with a roof,[3] entrusting its care to a nearby Buddhist monastery.[4] This stewardship continued until the early 20th century, when the stele caught the attention of the outside world.
In 1907, Frits Holm, a young Danish adventurer with grand ambitions, arrived in China determined to claim the stele for a Western museum.[5] Holm, claiming that the “scientific world” of the West would better appreciate and care for the stele, planned to take it.[6] When local officials caught wind of his intentions, they quickly relocated the monument to the Stele Forest Museum in Xi’an, prompting Holm to commission skilled local artisans to create an exact replica. Using limestone from the same region and precise ink rubbings of the original, the artisans meticulously reproduced every detail, including the inscriptions, surface imperfections, and even the dents,[7] completing the replica in just 11 days.[8]
Transporting the replica out of China, however, proved to be far more complicated than its creation. Holm encountered significant resistance from local authorities, who were wary of allowing a cultural treasure—replica or not—to leave the country. Although Holm ultimately secured permissions with the help of the Russian minister who also represented the Danish government in China, the process was fraught with bureaucratic hurdles, delays, and tense negotiations. The replica was repeatedly “arrested and held in custody” as Holm described it, with officials fearing repercussions for approving its removal. Holm himself made multiple trips to Beijing to resolve the matter, while the replica endured a long and arduous journey to the coast—first by a specially built cart pulled by mules for 90 miles, then floated for over 200 miles down the Yellow River by boat.[9]
Holm initially intended to offer the replica to the British Museum, but they showed little interest. Undaunted, he shipped the two-ton stone to New York, where it found a temporary home at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yet even there, the reception lacked enthusiasm. The museum’s director, Caspar Purdon Clarke, dismissed the replica as “so large a stone… of no artistic value in a museum of this sort.”[10] Instead of purchasing it, the MET agreed to display the stele on loan from Holm for eight years.[11] Eventually, Holm found a buyer in Julia May Crofton Leary, a wealthy New Yorker with a passion for philanthropy. In 1917, Leary purchased the replica and gifted it to Pope Benedict XV,[12] and Holm later claimed he personally delivered it to Rome, braving harassment from Austrian submarines along the way.[13] The replica has since resided in the Vatican’s Ethnological Museum.
The Vatican’s acquisition marked the beginning of a new chapter for the stele. With the Pope’s approval, plaster casts of Holm’s replica were produced in the Lateran Museum and distributed to academic institutions around the world. These casts, lighter and more portable, were particularly valued in academic circles for the history and cultural significance they carried, even as they were often viewed as inferior to the original in artistic value. One of these plaster casts was gifted to McGill University in 1921 to mark its centenary. Initially displayed in the Redpath Library alongside the prestigious Gest Collection of rare Chinese manuscripts, the stele was moved to the Birks Building in 1937 when the collection was sold to Princeton University, where it remained in a seminar room for decades.
Though many might dismiss it as “just a replica,” the stele has long been a meaningful connection to a larger legacy for Montreal’s Chinese community. Their dedication was made clear through a recent restoration effort led by Jason Tan, with support from the local Chinese community and the Groupe Boda. The project transformed the plaster cast to more closely resemble the original, darkening its once-stark white surface to evoke the weathered limestone appearance of the stele in Xi’an. In this transformation lies an important cultural perspective: a faithful resemblance to the original preserves its historical intentions, ensuring its essence remains accessible to contemporary audiences.
This approach highlights a significant difference in how cultures view replication and authenticity. In Chinese tradition, copying is a means of preservation and transmission. Through careful replication, the beauty, history, and artistry of a work can be safeguarded, ensuring that its legacy survives even if the original is lost or damaged. For centuries, artisans in China honed their skills by copying masterworks—an educational practice that emphasized both technical precision and respect for the source material. Replicas were not seen as mere imitations but as embodiments of cultural knowledge and continuity.[14] Even the alteration of originals, such as re-cutting portions of important stones, has been acceptable in the Chinese context when done for preservation purposes. In fact, the title caption of the original Jingjiao Stele itself has been re-cut in recent years to protect it and ensure rubbings can continue to be taken,[15] safeguarding its accessibility and legacy. In contrast, Western conservation standards have historically prioritized material originality, often hesitating to alter or reproduce artifacts for fear of diminishing their uniqueness. The story of the Jingjiao Stele and its replicas reveals how these perspectives can coexist, shaping our understanding of authenticity and preservation across cultures.
Today, the McGill replica stands proudly in the foyer of the Birks Building, not as a simple copy but as a vessel of history and cultural exchange. Its journey—from Tang Dynasty China to 21st-century Montreal—reflects the many hands and minds that have made it possible for it to be here on campus and viewed by audiences today: the Tang artisans who carved the original, the Chinese craftsmen who recreated it, Frits Holm who propelled it into global view, and the Montreal Chinese community who have attentively restored it. Whether original or replicated, the Jingjiao Stele preserves a story of faith, craftsmanship, and the cultural interactions that have shaped its legacy.
I am grateful to David Mitchell, Max Stern Fellow in 2016 at the Visual Arts Collection for his detailed research report tracing the provenance of McGill University’s cast. His bibliography was an important starting point for my research.
[1] Fig 1. McGill University’s plaster cast replica of the Jingjiao Stele after restoration, 2024.
[2] Anastasia McGrath, “China’s Buried Christian History,” Sapientia, February 10, 2021, Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, https://crc.blog.fordham.edu/arts-culture/chinas-buried-christian-history/.
[3] Fig. 2. Engraving after a photograph of the monument with a shelter built in 1891, from Henri Havret, La stèle chrétienne de Si-ngan-fou, vol. 2, facing p. 162. National Taiwan University Library, reproduced in Michael Keevak, The Story of a Stele: China’s Nestorian Monument and Its Reception in the West, 1625–1916 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008), 113.
[4] David Emil Mungello, Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989), 168.
[5] Fig. 3. Photograph of Frits Holm with the Jingjiao Stele, from Frits Holm, The Nestorian Monument: An Ancient Record of Christianity in China (New York: John Lane Company, 1909), 22.
[6] Frits Holm, My Nestorian Adventure in China: A Popular Account of the Holm-Nestorian Expedition to Sian-Fu and Its Results (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1923), 24.
[7] “The Nestorian Stone’s Message of Centuries.” The New York Times, July 12, 1908. https://nyti.ms/3YEiWb6.
[8] Michael Keevak, The Story of a Stele: China’s Nestorian Monument and Its Reception in the West, 1625–1916 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008), 118.
[9] “The Nestorian Stone’s Message of Centuries.” The New York Times, July 12, 1908. https://nyti.ms/3YEiWb6.
[10] Michael Keevak, The Story of a Stele: China’s Nestorian Monument and Its Reception in the West, 1625–1916 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008), 118.
[11] Frits Holm, My Nestorian Adventure in China: A Popular Account of the Holm-Nestorian Expedition to Sian-Fu and Its Results (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1923), 310.
[12] “Mrs. George Leary: Honored by Pope Benedict XV for Services to the Church.” The New York Times, July 5, 1935. https://nyti.ms/4fE7Jhl.
[13] Frits Holm, My Nestorian Adventure in China: A Popular Account of the Holm-Nestorian Expedition to Sian-Fu and Its Results (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1923), 320.
[14] Byung-Chul Han, “Why, in China and Japan, a Copy Is Just as Good as an Original,” Aeon, March 8, 2018, https://aeon.co/essays/why-in-china-and-japan-a-copy-is-just-as-good-as-an-original.
[15] Kenneth Starr, Black Tigers: A Grammar of Chinese Rubbings (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2008), 192.
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