The prefaces to Chinese mathematical works produced in the imperial period are important material for the reconstruction of the history of mathematics in China. They provided a way for their authors to situate the prefaced work with respect to earlier ones, both ancient and more recent. In fact, these prefaces give us access to representations of and attitudes to the past and present of mathematics, rather than merely to “historical facts” about it. During the seventeenth century, the introduction of “Western learning” (xixue 西學) by the Jesuits led to a recasting of the historical narrative of mathematics that integrated the knowledge imported from Europe into “Chinese learning” (zhongxue 中學). On the other hand, the Qing dynasty’s (1644-1911) appropriation of the mathematical sciences as a tool for statecraft and for territorial expansion also entailed a historical discourse on these disciplines. In this paper, I will show how these two factors contributed to shaping attitudes towards Chinese antiquity and to the mathematical knowledge it allegedly possessed. For this purpose, I will consider the two persons who most influenced the reconstruction of the mathematical sciences during the early Qing period, relying mostly ¬—but not exclusively— on prefatory and other front matters from the works they wrote or commissioned. On the one hand, the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662-1722), whose interest in the sciences is well known, played a major role in their reconstruction as an imperially sponsored discipline: while referring to Chinese antiquity, the narrative associated to that reconstruction emphasised the unprecedented character of the achievements made possible by his patronage. On the other hand, Mei Wending 梅文鼎 (1633-1721), the most famous mathematician and astronomer of the time, investigated ancient sources in these fields, proposing original historical interpretations for them. At the same time he claimed that men of antiquity did not possess better knowledge than his contemporaries; rather, Antiquity provided a model for the devolution of authority to specialists by rulers in the mathematical sciences. The opposition between these two standpoints, which were, to some extent, reconciled during the first decade of the eighteenth century, is in some ways reminiscent of the “Quarrel of Ancients and Moderns” as it developed mainly in France at the same time. The relevance and limits of this parallel will be discussed in the conclusion of this paper.