The export from China of items for the Western market started as soon as the Chinese emperor Kangxi who reigned from 1661 to 1722, allowed foreign traders to set up businesses in Canton, present-day Guangzhou. These businesses called ‘Hongs’ were located in the city on a small piece of land along the Pearl River. Tea, porcelain. silk and finely carved objects were highly popular in the Western world and commanded high prices. The Chinese were masters of miniature carving and made intricate works of art in ivory, tortoise shell, wood, mother-of-pearl and other materials. Card holders, fans, cigar boxes, parasol handles and other highly desirable objects entered the Western world. The nobility in Europe ordered large porcelain dinner services and had them decorated with their coats of arms. At the same time they often commissioned sets of mother-of-pearl gaming counters. Wealthy people showed off with their own personalized counter sets which were used in card games during long winter evenings when there was not much else to do. M-o-p counters were especially popular from around 1740 to 1840 and were used for gambling in card-games known as ‘Ombre’, ‘Quadrille’ and ‘Pope Joan’. Even though m-o-p game counters were also used in France, Russia, Spain, Portugal and Holland, their popularity was the highest in the UK and America. The usual m-o-p gaming set consisted of 140 counters of which 20 were square, 40 were round (sometimes these numbers were reversed) and 80 rectangular which were numbers all divisible by four, the number of players of most games. Rectangular counters or ‘oblongs’ were worth 1 point, round ones 5 points and square ones 10 points. Most mop-counters have survived miraculously well. No wonder, as mother-of-pearl is a hard and crack-resistant material which requires much patience and skill to carve. In fact it is made of the iridescent inner layer of a thick oyster shell of which the best quality originated from the Philippines and the Persian Gulf. First the hard outer shell had to be removed by grinding and the remaining material could be carefully split as mop consists of layers of ‘nacre’, the stuff which also forms pearls. In the early years counters were decorated with simple pictures of flowers and birds by engraving the mop with a hard sharp object. By the beginning of the 19th century when new card games were introduced with simpler counting systems not requiring large sets of counters, the number of orders for mop-sets most probably dwindled and the Chinese tried to make them more attractive by introducing a deep-carved variety. This is the type on which the Lowlands-collection focuses. They date from the period around 1820 – 1840 and depict on one side a coat of arms or the initials of the owner and on the other side scenes of everyday Chinese life in a three dimensional form. These little gems have become time capsules and show activities and clothing styles from a long-gone era. It is almost unbelievable how the artisans managed to carve out all these miniature landscapes in intricate detail out of such a tough material. The counters are very small and even under large magnification the scenes remain sharp and clear. Taking photos of m-o-p counters is however only possible under a certain angle. Details become visible but the brilliance of the material unfortunately disappears. Yellow spots can also show up on the photos even though the m-o-p is of a pure milk-white quality. This is caused by the refraction of light in the successive layers of nacre which form mother-of-pearl. While photographing the collection we opted for details instead of brilliance because our aim was to create a picture book of Chinese life during the beginning of the 19th century. This would have been impossible without the support and advice from our friend Mr Bill Neal in England (www.chezbill.com) who owns most probably the largest collection of mop-counters in the world. Mr Neal has been instrumental in offering a selection of super-quality deep-carved counters which today forms one of the highlights of the Lowlands-collection.