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This cup is a powerful document of the link between artisanal production and state administration; bureaucracy as a guarantee of beauty. It’s not something familiar to the modern European, but for the journalist and China expert Isabel Hilton it’s a continuing tradition in Chinese history:

In Han times, the government had a major role in industry, partly to deal with its military expenditure in order to finance the kind of expeditions that it required against the aggressive peoples of the north and the west. The government nationalized some major industries and it regulated major industries for quite a long time, so they were often run by private entrepreneurs or people who had been entrepreneurs, but under state control. There are modern parallels here, because what we’ve seen in the past few decades is the emergence of a hybrid system in China, from an economy that was completely under state control to a more market-oriented model, but nevertheless very firmly under state direction. If you look at where the capital gets invested, and what the structure of ownership is in Chinese industry, it is still largely state-controlled.

So, exploring this lacquer cup of 2,000 years ago takes us into territory that is disconcertingly familiar – private enterprise under Chinese state control, cutting-edge mass production allied to high technology, deft management of relations between the Chinese capital and North Korea, and the skilful deployment of diplomatic gifts. The Chinese still know that the best gifts are always the ones that only the giver can command. In the time of the Han Dynasty, that was silk and lacquer cups. Today, when China wants to establish friendly relations, it still gives the present that nobody else can match – it’s known as Panda Diplomacy.

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Head of Augustus

Bronze statue, found in Meroë (near Shendi), Sudan

27–25 BC

Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor, is one of the most famous leaders in the history of the world. We have his bronze head here in the Roman galleries in the British Museum. Although tarnished, it radiates charisma and raw power. It is impossible to ignore. The eyes are dramatic and piercing; wherever you stand, they won’t look at you. Augustus is looking past you, beyond you, to something much more important: his future.

The curling hair is short and boyish, slightly tousled, but it’s a calculated tousle – one that clearly took a long time to arrange. This is an image that has been carefully constructed, projecting just the right mix of youth and authority, beauty and strength, will and power. The portrait was very recognizable at the time, and it’s proved very enduring.

His head is a bit over life-size and tilted as if he’s in conversation, so for a moment you could believe that he’s just like you and me – but he’s not. This is the Roman emperor who ruled at the time Christ was born. The image presents him when he has recently defeated Antony and Cleopatra and has conquered Egypt; he is well on his way now to imperial glory and is firmly embarked on an even greater journey – to becoming a god.

In previous chapters I’ve looked at how rulers commissioned objects that asserted their power – somewhat obliquely and essentially by association. But this is something completely different – a ruler who uses his own body and his own likeness to assert his personal power. His bronze, larger-than-life head gives a brutally clear message: I am great, I am your leader, and I stand far above everyday politics. And yet, ironically, we have this commanding head here at the Museum only because it was captured by an enemy and then humiliatingly buried. The glory of Augustus is not quite as unalloyed as he wanted us to believe.

Augustus was Julius Caesar’s great-nephew. The assassination of Caesar in 44 BC left him the heir to Caesar’s fortune and to his power. He was only 19 when suddenly he was catapulted into a key role in the politics of the Roman Republic.

Known at that point as Octavian,