Journal articles on the topic 'Porcelain, chinese – collectors and collecting'

The International Exhibition of Chinese Art that took place in London’s Burlington House from November 1935 to March 1936 is recognised as the major exhibition of ancient and classical Chinese art of the twentieth century. Over two hundred collectors and institutions from 14 countries provided their objects of art to the exhibition. None of the previous exhibitions had had as many items: the number of objects was extraordinary with 3,080 entries in the catalogue of the London exhibition. Moreover, it was the first foreign exhibition presenting items from the former imperial collection of the Forbidden City (Gugun Museum since 1925). In addition to numerous porcelain and bronze items from private and museum collections, the exhibition contained about 300 paintings (monumental painting, scrolls, album sheets, and fans). While it is generally believed that western collectors only started being seriously interested in painting after World War II, the exhibition contained over a hundred paintings of non-Chinese provenance. Due to its scale, the International Exhibition of Chinese Art of 1935 could be considered a representative example of trends in the Chinese art collecting of the 1930s. For this reason, a close analysis of the catalogue may help enrich our idea of the formation of collections of Chinese art, the formation of taste, and its evolution over time. Data related to the paintings from the catalogue are analysed and then compared to the current descriptions from museum databases and catalogues.

In the two decades since the establishment of the people’s Republic of China, the challenges facing porcelain production have changed significantly. Porcelain production is one of the most important and oldest traditions in China. In the 1950s, porcelain craftsmen became involved in the creation of new forms of interior plastics. Many of the pieces they created are now part of museum collections and represent the history of the development of Chinese interior porcelain. Using the example of three museums and three reference monuments, the article examines the key trends in the development of porcelain art and stylistic changes that occurred during this period. The following museums have been selected as examples to showcase the specifics of Chinese porcelain art from this period: the China Ceramic and Porcelain Museum located in Jingdezhen City, which is the country’s first major art museum specializing in ceramics; the Chinese Fine Arts Museum in Beijing, which specializes in collecting, researching and displaying works of Chinese artists of modern and contemporary eras; and the Guangdong Folk Art Museum, which specializes in collecting, researching and displaying Chinese folk art. All of these museums are engaged in collecting porcelain, including interior porcelain plastics from the mid-20th century. In the collections of the aforementioned museums, three works were selected for analysis. These are three paired compositions created in the second half of the 1950s: the sculpture “An Old Man and a Child with a Peach” by Zeng Longsheng, “Good Aunt from the Commune” by Zhou Guozhen and “Fifteen coins. The rat case” by Lin Hongxi. These porcelain compositions reveal close relations with Chinese national culture and not only reflect various scenes, but are also aimed at expanding the role of porcelain in decorating residential interiors.

The object of this research is contemporary Chinese art in the context of the latest trends in the development of the global and national art market. The subject of the study is the problem of underestimation of modern ceramic art in China and its potential from the standpoint of the art market. The history of the issue is considered, the analysis of the main directions of research development in this subject area is carried out. In addition, the article clarifies the existing concept of "modern ceramic art" in China. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the most significant modern objects of Chinese ceramics presented in the domestic art market of the country. The features of the artistic originality of the masters Li Jiusheng, Wang Silyan, Zhang Songmao, Guo Aihe are revealed. The scientific novelty of the research is connected with the development of ideas about the modern ceramic art of China, its role in the modern art market, both at the national and international levels. For the first time, the criteria for the demand for modern porcelain are revealed; the idea is stated that the problem of collecting modern Chinese ceramics remains on the periphery of scientific discourse. A special contribution is the establishment and justification of the artistic value of a number of works carried out for the first time in science, which were sold at various auctions for fabulous money. The main conclusions of the study are the following. Currently, the development of the art market indicates that experts are beginning to realize the artistic value of modern Chinese ceramics art. The greatest interest among collectors is aroused by works in the spirit of "ceramic painting" with the use of modern technologies that allow expanding the expressive possibilities of painting on porcelain. The boom in collecting modern Chinese porcelain, observed since the beginning of the XXI century, testifies to the high level of artistic execution of objects of modern ceramic art in China, as well as such qualities as innovation and non-standardness in terms of choosing themes, visual effects, expression of the author's idea, rethinking academic traditions.

The object of the study is a Chinese screen. The subject of the study is the characteristic features of the Chinese screen based on the material of the Hermitage collection. During the consideration of the topic, such issues as the degree of study of the issues under consideration, the connection of the screen with the fields of fine and decorative arts are traced and analyzed. The analysis of seven items from the collection of the State Hermitage Museum is carried out. The analysis of rare samples of the Chinese screen allows us to identify the characteristic features of this subject, the specifics of the development of the Chinese screen in the XVIII – XIX centuries, as well as to discover its relationship with the spheres of decorative, applied and fine arts of China. The author examines in detail the artistic features of the objects, their design characteristics, the use of various materials – porcelain, wood, metal, jade, the content of calligraphic inscriptions appearing on the objects in the context of the aesthetics of the epoch and socio-cultural space. The research involves the systematization of information related to collecting, studying, and describing the screen in Russian museum practice and theory. Traditional methods of art criticism and historiographical analysis are used; a combination of formal and iconological methods allows to create a reliable idea of the works of art under consideration, identify meaningful and formal features; the historical and cultural method allows to clarify the nature of the patterns of screen development. The scientific novelty of the research primarily consists in the fact that for the first time an analysis of the Chinese screen in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum is carried out, a detailed description and a comprehensive art historical analysis of a number of previously unexplored objects are given. The systematization of Russian publications devoted to the problem of the screen is carried out, in particular, offering a description and analysis of certain screens. The study clarifies and expands existing ideas about the Chinese screen, clarifies the attribution of a number of objects in the collections of the State Hermitage Museum. It is concluded that the objects presented in the Hermitage collections are of considerable variety and give an idea of the variety of techniques and materials for creating screens in China in the XVIII – XIX centuries, allow us to see the connection between the art of creating screens with the field of decorative and applied arts and painting. The screen of this period is a work of art with high artistic value. The aesthetics of the screen is connected not only with the current trends in the development of decorative, applied and fine arts, but also with the socio-cultural context.

On-site pXRF analysis in various French collections (Musée du Louvre, Musée national des Arts asiatiques-Guimet, Paris) of porcelains decorated with painted enamels from the Qing Dynasty, in particular porcelains bearing an imperial mark, identifies the types of enamels/glazes, the ions and coloring phases or the opacifier. The study of the elements associated with cobalt (nickel, manganese, arsenic, etc.) and of the impurities of the silicate matrix (yttrium, rubidium and strontium) differentiates the use of ‘Chinese/Asian’ raw materials from ones imported from Europe by the initiative of the European missionaries (chiefly Jesuits) present at the Court (Beijing). Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the blue color of the marks and to the elements associated with the use of gold or copper nanoparticles as well as to the compositions of the pyrochlore phases (tin yellow, Naples yellow). The comparison is extended to pXRF and Raman microspectroscopy measurements previously made on other Qing imperial porcelains as well as on Cantonese productions (on porcelain or metal) from different Swiss and French museums and blue-and-white wares of the Ming and Yuan Dynasties (archaeological and private collections).

Norwegian museums have large collections of chinaware, dating from the eighteenth century; most of it imported after the foundation the Danish Asian Company in 1732. I have selected a tea and coffee service in the collections of Norsk Folkemuseum: Norwegian Museum of Cultural History as a passageway to trace the entanglement of Norwegian consumers in cultural interactions with China. The service is part of a broader history of transculturation. This is a history of encounters and exchanges involving the cultural translation of Chinese designs in Europe, and Western designs in China. Into the transculturation is entangled the enthusiasm with Chinese porcelain in Europe, and the negotiations by which Chinese potters and painters translated European demands for particular shapes, decorative motifs and fashionable designs into porcelain products for export. Through the engagement of the Danish Asian Company in China, I will discuss the impact of these processes in Norway, and their influence on the tastes and preferences of Norwegian consumers.

A selection of 15 Chinese painted enameled porcelains from the 18th century (Qing dynasty) was analyzed on-site by mobile Raman and XRF microspectroscopy. The highly prized artifacts are present in the collections of the Musée du Louvre in Paris and Musée Chinois at Fontainebleau Castle in France. In the painted enamels, pigments such as Naples yellow lead pyrochlore, hematite, manganese oxide and carbon and opacifiers such as lead arsenates were detected. The glassy matrices of the enamels mainly belonged to lead-rich and lead-alkali glass types according to the Raman spectra obtained. The glaze and body phases of the porcelain artifacts were also analyzed. The detection of lead arsenate apatite in some of the blue enamels was significant, indicating the use of arsenic-rich European cobalt ores (smalt) and possibly mixing with Asian cobalt. This characteristic phase has also been identified in French soft-paste porcelains and glass decor and high-quality Limoges enamels from the same period. Based on the shape of the Raman scattering background, the presence of colloidal gold (Au° nanoparticles) was identified in red, orange and pink enamels. Different types of Naples yellow pigments were also detected with Sb-rich, Sn-rich and mixed Sb–Sn–(Zn, Fe?) compositions in the yellow enamels. The results were compared to previous data obtained on Chinese cloisonné and painted enameled metalware and Limoges enamels as well as French enameled watches.

Dress is a part of Chinese cultural heritage that has fascinated Western audiences for centuries. On the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of China, there are items related to textiles, embroideries and certain examples of Chinese clothing. This article analyses issues connected with the different uses of Chinese dress in the West. To fashion theorists such as Bell, Wilson, Sapir and Veblen, Chinese dress was the opposite of modern Western clothing and did not deserve to be called fashion. However, researchers such as Welters, Lillethun and Craik have opposed viewing fashion theory through a Eurocentric prism in their desire to rewrite fashion history. Fashion designers drew ideas from China, treating it as a source of inspiration to create their own original designs. For some of them, such as Yves Saint Laurent, it was a China of their imagination. In certain cases, they made use of porcelain designs or dragon motifs in their own collections, for instance, in designs by Cavalli and Ford. The incorporation of Chinese garments into Western collections has also become visible.

The article deals with the works of polychrome painted Chinese porcelain created in the Qing era from the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum of Arts. Each product is analyzed in terms of its color, decoration and image scenes. Attention of the author is focused on symbolic images, among which are anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and vegetative motifs, end variations of the so-called Chinese still life.As a result of the study, three items of Chinese polychrome porcelain with super-polished painted enamel paints were analyzed. The disclosure of semantic content, symbols and semantics of artistic decorations created on the basis of the Chinese religious and mythological beliefs, as well as literary and artistic works has been revealed. The attribution of products based on comparison with similar items from collections of world museums has been specified. The origin of the image of «Chinese woman with a child», which was commonly used during the reign of Emperor Yongzhen and his successor Qianlong, is related to several factors. First, creating a cycle of «Twelve Beauties at Leisure Painted for Prince Yinzhen, the Future Yongzheng Emperor», images of which have been reflected in numerous repetitions, in particular, on porcelain products. Secondly, the spread of European Christian missionaries in China with European models with the image of the Virgin Mary and the infant Christ, which could be the starting point for the spread of the Chinese «prototype» of a woman with one or two children.

The study of Korean ceramics in the modern period was initiated by the discovery of Koryŏ celadon. The first collectors were mainly Europeans and Americans but it was not long before Japanese scholars, namely Yamayoshi Moriyoshi(1859-?) and Yagi Shozaburo(1866-1942), attempted to establish the history of Korean ceramics, introducing Chosŏn dynasty into the history for the first time. Thereafter, Japanese scholars and collectors dominated the study and collection of Korean ceramics. In the 1920s, the Asakawa Noritaka(1884-1964) and Takumi(1891-1931) brothers and Yanagi Muneyoshi(1889-1961) pioneered the collection, evaluation, and study of Chosŏn white porcelain. The collecting, academic research, and public interest were the three main elements that were closely connected to strengthen the understanding of Korean ceramics.</br>The pioneering activities of the Asakawa brothers and Yanagi did not have a large impact at first, but the high price attained by Goshomaru, a Koryŏ tea bowl, in an auction in 1925, and the so-called Gyerongsan uproar of 1926 attracted public attention, resulting in the 1930s craze for Chosŏn crafts including Chosŏn white porcelain. Large amounts of Chosŏn craft items were shipped from Korea to Japan in the 1930s.</br>From the 1930s to the 1940s, a new social class emerged in Korea that valued culture and refinement, and collections by Koreans rapidly increased. Although the early role of Japanese collectors and scholars in modern collection and study of Korean ceramics cannot be disputed, by the 1930s, Koreans were starting to take over the role.

The Topkapĭ Saray holds one of the world's largest collections of Chinese ceramics, but at the same time one of the least well known. It consists of over ten thousand pieces, of which roughly fifteen percent are on permanent display; only a few hundred items have ever been published, and not more than twenty-five objects have been on exhibition outside Turkey. To compare this collection with the even larger one in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is quite instructive: the pieces are completely different and have almost no item in common in spite of the fact that they cover largely the same period. What is housed in the National Palace Museum is a substantial part of the former Imperial collection or, at any rate, had once belonged to the holdings of the Imperial palace in Beijing (Peking). It had then been packed up in 1931 when the Japanese invaded Manchuria, and after a sixteen-year trip through China from one supposedly safe place to another, had finally been transported from the mainland to Taiwan when Chiang Kaishek established his government there. It represents a superb cross-section of those ceramics that were produced for the Chinese home market, in particular for the Imperial court and the scholar-official elite with its high standards of artistic perfection.

Abstract The Medici of Florence have long been acknowledged as possessing the largest collection of Chinese porcelain in the fifteenth century, but this article reveals that in fact Eleonora d’Aragona, Duchess of Ferrara had the largest such collection in Italy at this time. In fifteenth-century Europe, porcelain came not directly from China but rather through trade and diplomacy with foreign courts, so that its peregrinations gave rise to entangled histories and reception. Taking porcelain as a case-study, it is argued here that examining collecting through the lens of trade and diplomacy provides new interpretations of – and demands new approaches to – the history of collecting.

A selection of 10 Chinese enamelled metal wares dating from the 17th–18th centuries (Qing Dynasty) was analysed on-site by mobile Raman microspectroscopy. These wares display cloisonné and/or painted enamels and belong to the collections of Musée du Louvre in Paris and Musée Chinois at the Fontainebleau Castle in France. Pigments (Naples yellow lead pyrochlore, hematite, manganese oxide etc.), opacifiers (fluorite, lead arsenates) and corresponding lead-based glassy matrices were identified. One artefact was also analysed by portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF) in order to confirm the Raman data. In some of these metal wares, it is suggested that cassiterite was unpredictably used as an opacifier in some parts of the decor. The results are compared to previous data obtained on Chinese cloisonné and Limoges enamels as well as recent data recorded on painted enamelled porcelains of the Qing Dynasty. Lead arsenate apatite detected in some of the 17th–18th century blue enamelled decors is related to the use of arsenic-rich European cobalt ores, as also characterized in French soft-paste porcelain and glass decors and high-quality Limoges enamels for the same period. However, lead arsenate could then also have been deliberately used for white opacification. The specific Raman signature displaying the shape of the Raman scattering background indicates the presence of colloidal gold (Au° nanoparticles) in red to violet enamelled and cloisonné areas. At least three types of Naples yellow lead pyrochlore pigments identified with Sb-rich, Sn-rich and mixed Sb–Sn–(Zn, Fe?) compositions prove the use of European pigments/recipes.

During the turbulent years between the Chinese nationalist revolution of 1911 and the communist victory of 1949, a group of missionaries lived and worked in West China whose social gospel theologies led to unusual identification with Chinese. Among the regular social actors in their lives were itinerant “curio men” who, amidst the chaos of feuding warlords, gathered up the heirlooms of the deposed Manchurian aristocracy and offered these wares for sale on the quiet and orderly verandahs of the mansions inside the missionary compounds of West China Union University. Although missionary men and women often collected the same types of Chinese antiquities, these became variously specimens, fine arts, commodities and household effects because their collecting practices were framed within different cultural and gendered domains of value. The scientific and connoisseurial male-gendered collecting paradigms often bolstered the anti-imperialist Chinese nationalist modernities of the Republican state. They were therefore paradoxically at odds with female-gendered collecting paradigms that drew in part upon feminist discourses of capitalist consumerism. Coupled with residual ideals of domesticity and philanthropy, these fluid female discourses resonated with emergent Chinese New Woman modernities and inspired missionary women in creative bicultural identity projects.

Abstract In the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), book collecting evolved from an elite pastime into a widespread obsession. ‘Bibliophilia’—the passionate love for books—drove many book collectors to exhaust their fortunes or even trade their concubines for books. As books became indispensable towards gaining respectability in Chinese society, scholars, merchants, and landowners ensured that their residences were thoroughly infused with the prestigious “fragrance of books”. Some literati even regarded book collecting as a man’s most important undertaking in life. Ming private book collectors broke away from tradition and made their private collections available for others to view, exchange, or copy, greatly promoting the circulation of books. Through their incredible attention to the collection, classification, storage, and proofreading of books, Ming bibliophiles contributed enormously to the preservation and transmission of Chinese culture.

The article is devoted to the analysis of a typical Chinese figurative motif — a dragon, in porcelain objects of the Ming and Qing dynasties and in works of Japanese ceramic art of the Meiji era. The approach to the study of decorative and applied art from the point of view of the motive has been repeatedly tested by the author when compiling typological series of antique motifs in the decorative and applied art of Russian classicism. The novelty of this article is that for the first time more than fifty Chinese and Japanese objects with dragons dating from the 14th — early 20th centuries originating from the National Museum of Chine, the Shanghai and Nanjing Museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum in Tokyo, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the State Hermitage Museum, as well as from several private collections. The following features were compared: posture, body position, color scheme, the nature of the background, as well as whether the dragon image is single or paired, the painting is made underglaze or overglaze, in the form of a flat or relief image. The early stage of the 14th–16th centuries it does not allow us to find prototypes of dragon images in the past, but still the author has collected certain information about cases of reflection of the dragon theme in Chinese cultural monuments. The objects of the 18th and, especially, the 19th centuries serve as a good material to find in the art of the bygone eras of the Celestial Empire the previous artistic interpretations of dragons. In the final part of the article, an overview of dragon images in Japanese ceramic art is presented, the reasons for the migration of this motif caused by the victory of Japan, as a competitor, in the Far Eastern porcelain market are substantiated.

“Red Collecting” is a widespread phenomenon in contemporary China. It refers to the collecting of objects from the Chinese Communist Party’s history. Red Collecting has received only minimal treatment in English-language scholarly literature, much of which focuses on individual object categories (primarily propaganda posters and Chairman Mao badges) and overemphasises the importance of Cultural Revolution objects within the field. Because of this limited focus, the collectors’ motivations have been similarly circumscribed, described primarily in terms of either neo-Maoist nostalgia or the pursuit of profit. This article will seek to enhance this existing literature and, in doing so, offer a series of new directions for research. It makes two main arguments. First, that the breadth of objects incorporated within the field of Red Collecting is far broader than current literature has acknowledged. In particular, the importance of revolutionary-era (pre-1949) collections, as well as regional and rural collections is highlighted. Second, it argues that collectors are driven by a much broader range of motivations, including a variety of both individual and social motivations. Significantly, it is argued that collectors’ intentions and their understandings of the past do not always align; rather, very different understandings of China’s recent past find expression through Red Collecting. As such, it is suggested that Red Collecting constitutes an important part of contemporary China’s “red legacies,” one which highlights the diversity of memories and narratives of both the Mao era and the revolutionary period. Image © Hou Feng

The settlement of molluscs’ larvae of and other biofouling organisms on experimental collectors was studied, with particular reference Great Mediterranean scallop, Pecten jacobaeus. Three types of experimental collector made from vegetable sacks, modelled based on the collectors used in Japan, were placed in four existing fish and shellfish farms located in the Boka Kotorska Bay. The experimental collectors were placed in the periods June–October and June–December 2017 and the period August 2017–February 2018 and monitored after immersion of four to six months, respectively. In total, 18 species of molluscs and also 28 species of biofouling organisms were determined. The most abundant ones found on the collectors were the following shellfish species (68 %) Talohlamys multistriata, Mytilus galloprovincialis, Modiolarca sp., Anomia ephippium and Limaria hians. The most abundant group of biofouling organisms were crustaceans (18 percent) with a species of porcelain crab, Pisidia longicornis, and tunicates (5 percent) with the species Phallusia mammillataand Ascidia mentula. The main target species, Great Mediterranean scallop, was most abundant on collector Type II,with 28 individuals. From three types of experimental collectors used in the process of collecting larvae of shellfish and biofouling species, collector type-I and type-II proved to be a more suitable basis for receiving larvae of shellfish due to the unimpeded flow of sea water that allows their successful growth and development. Species Talochlamys multistriata, were found in great abundance and it could be good candidate to diversify the aquaculture production, thus potentially offering farmers an additional source of income.

The settlement of molluscs’ larvae of and other biofouling organisms on experimental collectors was studied, with particular reference Great Mediterranean scallop, Pecten jacobaeus. Three types of experimental collector made from vegetable sacks, modelled based on the collectors used in Japan, were placed in four existing fish and shellfish farms located in the Boka Kotorska Bay. The experimental collectors were placed in the periods June–October and June–December 2017 and the period August 2017–February 2018 and monitored after immersion of four to six months, respectively. In total, 18 species of molluscs and also 28 species of biofouling organisms were determined. The most abundant ones found on the collectors were the following shellfish species (68 %) Talohlamys multistriata, Mytilus galloprovincialis, Modiolarca sp., Anomia ephippium and Limaria hians. The most abundant group of biofouling organisms were crustaceans (18 percent) with a species of porcelain crab, Pisidia longicornis, and tunicates (5 percent) with the species Phallusia mammillataand Ascidia mentula. The main target species, Great Mediterranean scallop, was most abundant on collector Type II,with 28 individuals. From three types of experimental collectors used in the process of collecting larvae of shellfish and biofouling species, collector type-I and type-II proved to be a more suitable basis for receiving larvae of shellfish due to the unimpeded flow of sea water that allows their successful growth and development. Species Talochlamys multistriata, were found in great abundance and it could be good candidate to diversify the aquaculture production, thus potentially offering farmers an additional source of income.

In the article, in the form of a brief overview, the Chinese influence on European art, in particular on English art, in the 19th century is described. The history of the emergence of Chinese art in Britain is summarized, the main stages of collecting and their prominent representatives are described. The article describes such areas of art as porcelain, engravings, painting, architecture, shows a description of their influence on European art, gives the reasons for the appearance of Chinese art in Europe. This article corrects the current picture of the development of collecting, based mainly on English-language material. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that the relationship of the studied cultures, the influence of Chinese culture on English is considered in the prism of social and political factors. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that the influence of Chinese art on the art of Europe depended on their position in the respective hierarchies: the higher the status of art in China, the less influence it had in Europe; and the higher the status of art in Europe, the less susceptible it was to Chinese influence.

Interest in Chinese art has swelled in the United States in recent years. In 2015, the collection of the late dealer-collector Robert Hatfield Ellsworth fetched no less than $134 million at auction (much of it from Mainland Chinese buyers), while the Metropolitan Museum of Art drew over 800,000 visitors to its galleries for the blockbuster show “China: Through the Looking Glass”—the fifth most-visited exhibition in the museum’s 130-year history. The roots of this interest in Chinese art reach back to the first two decades of the 20th Century and are grounded in the geopolitical questions of those years. Drawing from records of major collectors and museums in New York and Washington, D.C., this article argues that the United States became a major international center for collecting and studying Chinese art through cosmopolitan collaboration with European partners and, paradoxically, out of a nationalist sentiment justifying hegemony over a foreign culture derived from an ideology of American exceptionalism in the Pacific. This article frames the development of Chinese art as a contested process of knowledge production between the United States, Europe, and China that places the history of collecting in productive conversation with the history of Sino-American relations and imperialism.

The act of prescribing pharmaceutical drugs to patients is normally the site of judgements about the drug’s efficacy and safety. The success of treatments and the licences for commodities depend on the biochemical identity of the drugs and of their path and transformations inside the body. However, the ‘supply chain’ outside the body is eschewed by such discourse, and its importance for both pharmaceutical brands and physician-centred historiographies is ignored. As this ethnographic fieldwork on Tibetan and Chinese medicines in Sichuan shows, overlooked social actors ensure reliable knowledge about medicinal things and materials long before patients take their medicine. This paper takes a step back from the final products—clearly defined as ‘Tibetan’ or ‘Chinese’—and introduces those who produce and distribute them. Via observations of particular regimes of circulation and processing, the actions of collecting, manufacturing, transporting, and educating appear as the first and foremost acts of efficacy and safety.

The article deals with collecting in Utz (1989), by Bruce Chatwin. I read the fascination with collectors and collecting in the novel from and across two theoretical questions: (1) can objects enfold both a material status and an intangible effect as well as create an alternate narrative that would draw us away from commodification, objectification, and pathology? and (2) can the object confront us more with remnants of human life, with fragments of the representation of desire, and less with the residue of human labor? Kaspar Utz is a great collector of Meissen porcelain who the adverse events of history lead to living in Prague with his fragile treasures, under the malevolent eyes of a police state. Utz knows that a collector is almost an occult “theologian”, and his relationship with the Harlequins and the Colombines of Meissen has something idolatrous. Utz wages a silent war against the enemies that surround him, against the background noise of history, which would like to swallow forever these object-figures made of a substance refined by time. Utz’s lonely and manic life will become a game against the enemies, whose stake is the collection itself, an army of beings that must be removed from the brutal fingertips of tyrannical authority.

Abstract By 1930, the British public took a stronger interest in early Chinese art than in works produced in the pre-modern and modern periods. However, China’s cultural diplomacy in Britain during war-time, as well as the interactions between collectors, scholars and artists of both countries, helped refresh Occidental understanding of the tradition and recent achievements of Chinese art. This article examines the ways in which modern Chinese painting was perceived, collected and displayed in Britain from 1930 to 1980 – the formative period for the collecting and connoisseurship of modern Chinese art in the West. It analyses exhibitions of twentieth-century Chinese painting held in museums and galleries in order to map trends and identify the major parties who introduced the British public to a new aspect of Chinese pictorial art. It also discusses prominent Chinese painters’ connections with British curators, scholars and dealers, who helped establish their reputation in Britain.

Abstract For over a millennium, stone collecting and connoisseurship were major pastimes among Chinese scholars. While existing scholarship has shed light on historical rocks, collectors, and related treatises, few studies have focused on azurite and its connatural counterpart, malachite—two of the most luxurious and versatile minerals in traditional China. Composed of crystalline and matte granules of copper carbonate, and mottled with the colours of clear sky and verdant foliage, azurite and malachite are precious minerals that have rivalled the unique status of jade in their odd shapes and colours in the eyes of scholars and connoisseurs throughout the ages. This paper traces how the collecting of azurite and malachite rocks and their uses as materials for scholarly collectibles—such as paperweights, brush washers, and shi shan zi (decorative rocks shaped like mountains)—evolved in late imperial China.

This paper provides an overview of the development of contemporary Chinese art, highlighting important milestones such as the 798 Art Zone and the 85 New Wave Movement and examining the impact of globalization on the Chinese art scene. Next, the paper explores the personal background and collection philosophy of Uli Sigg, a prominent art collector who has played a significant role in the development of contemporary Chinese art. Siggs involvement in the establishment of the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (CCAA) and his role in connecting foreign capital with Chinese artists are discussed. Additionally, the paper examines the influence of Sigg on the international development of contemporary Chinese art through initiatives such as the M+ Museum and the Sigg Prize. The paper points out that Sigg has made an important contribution to the international recognition and exchange of Chinese contemporary art through exhibitions. Finally, the paper concludes by comparing Siggs contributions with those of other contemporary Chinese art collectors. It is noted that Siggs contribution is not only in art collecting but more importantly, in his cross-border thinking and global vision, which has had a profound impact on the development of Chinese contemporary art.

This paper translates and collates the contents of all the issues published by the Journal of the History of Collections, one of Oxford University Press Academic Journals, since its inception in 1989. It presents a detailed analysis of changes of article topics or themes in the Journal, based on which this paper demonstrates that the focus of research in this field has undergone three shifts on a decennial basis. By examining collectors’ social identities, motives for collecting, and changes in collection categories, this paper provides important insights into a theoretical framework that sustains the scholarship. It also provides a preliminary overview of current studies on the history of collections in both Chinese and Western academia. This paper seeks to provide some guidance for future explorations of the scholarship.

Almost all archaeometric studies on Chinese ceramics are carried out on the excavation materials. Therefore, a detailed, comparable database that defines different workshops and production periods already exists. But the masterpieces preserved at museums, art galleries, and/or private collections, which are artistically considered as genuine artifacts, also require similar scientific investigations to define their provenance and authenticity. The research on artworks is only possible with the use of portable, noninvasive techniques that are developing daily concerning their capability of detection limits, rate of measurement, and ease of use. In this study, the results obtained with a handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF) (also called portable XRF) and wavelength dispersive XRF instrument were compared to evidence the efficiency and drawbacks of the portable model. To achieve this goal, 12 sherds, which represent blue-and-white porcelains of Yuan and Ming Dynasties (China), were analyzed and the chemical composition of the body, glaze, and blue decor were identified. The comparison of the results with the measurements carried out on the excavation materials, which are produced in both southern and northern China, revealed the authenticity of the artifacts. Even sodium cannot be detected with portable XRF, the distinction of different production centers is possible with the detection of major (Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca), minor (Fe, Ti), and trace elements (Zr, Sr, Rb).

AbstractHow is the craft history of ordinary woodcarvers different from the political and economic history of elites and literati? This article tells a transnational history of Ningbo miniature whitewood figurines that were first collected by Western travelers as souvenirs from the 1870s to 1940s and then shipped to the West as export craft from the 1950s to 1980s. The examination of the makers, buyers, and collectors of these figurines reveals a dialectic process between carving and collecting. Focusing on both the making and circulation of these figurines, the article uncovers a new layer in modern Chinese history: with the political regime changing from the imperial state to socialist state, the carving and business practices of local artisans continued at its own rhythm. Less than three and a half inches tall, Ningbo whitewood figurines represent a miniature China carved and consumed on a global scale during the long twentieth century.

In the second half of the 19th century, Buddhist bells from Japan began to arrive in Switzerland. The fact that these were objects listed in the so-called ethnographic collections is not surprising and the history of collecting has been a subject of postcolonial research. However, remarkably, the travel route of these bells, some of which weighed over a ton, could not be documented. Until now, the way how the bells were imported into Switzerland as unknown, and the problem of their provenance unsolved. This article argues that a global history approach provides new insights in two respects: The consideration of materiality allows a new nderstanding of the objects, while the activities of local collectors, seen from a micro-global point of view, reveal the local imprints of the global. Within this rationale, a history of individual bells in the possession of individual art lovers and museums translates into a history of scrap metal trade, allows to consider the disposal of disliked objects at their place of origin, and opens up a global framing of local history. Using global history as a concept, the historicity of the global gains visibility as we look at the intersection of materiality and the local involvement of global networks. Ultimately, as we follow the journey of the bells, reinterpreting scrap metal into art has formed a striking way in which local history assimilates the global.

Abstract The present study defines the connection between Japonisme and the Greek diplomat and donor-collector Gregorios Manos (1851–1928). Manos collected Japanese pieces during the reign of Japonisme in Europe, was a pioneer of the study of Japanese art in Greece, and the first donor of Chinese and Japanese artifacts to the Greek State in 1919. The donation resulted in the foundation, in 1926, of the Sino-Japanese Museum (renamed in Museum of Asian Art in 1973) in Corfu. The present research is based on primary and secondary sources and seeks to present unpublished data as well as re-examine Manos’ connection to Japonisme. In addition, this micro-perspective research aims to reveal Manos’ studies, diplomatic carrier, collecting practices, and donating vision. At the same time, it hopes to enrich macro-perspective study by outlining the circumstances under which collectors founded museums of Asian art in peripheral places, such as Greece, during the first half of the twentieth century under and beyond the allure of Japonisme.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the current watercolour painting market situation in China on the development of the watercolour painting market in China. In addition, this study investigates the role of the watercolour painting market environment in China as a moderating variable in the relationship between the current state of the watercolour painting market in China and its future development. Theoretical framework: Contemporary Chinese art and culture exist in a society that is open and pluralistic. Through the efforts of several generations, they have created not only a magnitude but also a vast market. In a technologically based society, technologically based painting is on the verge of extinction. The construction of cultural artistic conception and character is a novel topic in the art education and instruction of contemporary Chinese watercolour painting. Design/Methodology/Approach: A total of 495 respondents participated in the survey comprised of 110 watercolour artist collectors, 220 watercolour paintings and 165 lectors and business intermediaries 165. This study was a cross-sectional study where the data collection period is from August to October 2021. A survey with a closed-ended and self-administered format was conducted in order to collect data. The questionnaire is divided into two sections, Smart PLS was used to analyse the data and identify any significant relationships between the variables. There was a correlation between being a colour artist and collecting watercolour paintings. Findings: This study focuses on watercolour painters, watercolour collectors, and commercial intermediaries., according to the findings. This suggests that artists are more likely than non-artists to collect watercolour paintings. In addition, the study revealed that business intermediaries play a crucial role in facilitating the sale of these paintings. The study revealed that watercolour painting is a popular art form among both artists and collectors. Watercolour paintings have been a popular art form for centuries, and this study confirms that their popularity remains strong among both artists and collectors. The delicate beauty of watercolours, with their translucent washes of colour and soft edges, is particularly appealing to those who appreciate the subtleties of art. Research, practical & social implications: This study found that watercolour paintings are highly valued by business intermediaries, who recognize their potential as investments. In fact, many galleries and auction houses specialize in selling watercolours, and the market for these works continues to grow. Originality/Value: it is important to note that not all watercolour paintings are created equal - some are more highly prized than others based on factors such as the artist's reputation, the quality of the materials used, and the subject matter depicted. Overall, this study underscores the enduring appeal of watercolour paintings and their continued relevance in today's art world. This research provides valuable insights into the relationship between colour artists, collections of watercolour paintings, and art industry intermediaries.

В киргизском фольклоре эпический жанр получил значительное развитие. Среди многочисленных сказок, песен, малых эпосов особое место занимает эпос «Манас». Эпос «Манас», принадлежащий творению киргизского народа, нашел свое бытование как в Киргизской Республике, так и в Китайской Народной Республике, где проживают этнические киргизы. Собирание и запись текстов «Манаса»ввиду его многовариантности и огромных размеров представляло большую научную проблему. В его собирании, публикации и исследовании приняли самое активное участие лучшие представители русской академической науки второй половины ХIХ — начала ХХ века, ведущие советские фольклористы многих национальностей, прежде всего киргизские, а также собиратели и исследователи «Манаса» из Китайской Народной Республики. Цель статьи — рассмотреть историю собирания и фиксации эпоса «Манас» в Киргизии и в Китае. Начало записи эпоса было положено еще в дореволюционное время Ч. Валихановым и В. Радловым и продолжено в советское время К. Мифтаховым, И. Абдырахмановым в Киргизской Республике. Эпос «Манас» популярен и в Китайской Народной Республике, где имеются многочисленные сказители эпоса, выступающие со своими вариантами. Большое внимание уделяется в Китае сбору и записи различных вариантов эпоса. Среди записчиков эпоса широко известна деятельность Балбая Мамая, Лю Фажун, Ху Чжэнхуа, Сакен Өмүр, Лю Чиенву и др. Благодаря их научно-исследовательской работе были записаны материалы многих сказителей. Таким образом, можно констатировать, что проделана огромная и важная работа в области записи вариантов эпоса «Манас» как в Киргизии, так и в Китае. The epic genre plays a significant role in Kyrgyz folklore. The Manas epos is prominent among the numerous tales, songs, and smaller epic works of Kyrgyz folklore. The Manas epos is popular both in the Kyrgyz Republic and in China where people of Kyrgyz ethnicity live. The work of collecting and writing down the Manas epos is a great challenge, for the epic is exceptionally long and versatile. The best Russian scholars of the late 19th — early 20th century, leading Soviet and Chinese researchers of Kyrgyz folklore united their efforts to collect and write down the Manas epos. The aim of the article is to analyze the history of collecting and writing down the Manas epos in Kyrgyzstan and in China. The process of collecting and writing down the epic work started in the pre-revolutionary period by Ch. Vaikhanov and V. Radlov. The work was continued by K. Miftakhov and I. Abdyrakhmanov in the Kyrgyz Republic. The Manas epos is popular in China, where there are many epic storytellers who recite their own variants of the epic. Chinese scholars work to collect and write down various variants of the epic. The most famous epic poetry collectors are Balbay Mamay, Lu Fajun, Hu Jen-hwa, Saken Omur, Lu Chienwu and others. The researchers have managed to write down more than twenty different variants of the epic. They have undoubtedly done great work in the sphere of collecting and writing down the Manas epos in Kyrgyzstan and in China.

In this article, the authors analyse materials from the excavations of the Tara fortress (Omsk Region, Wes-tern Siberia), founded in 1594 by Prince Andrei Yeletsky and functioned as the main outpost of the Russians in the Middle Irtysh region to counter Khan Kuchum, the Kuchumovichs, and then the newly-arrived population from Dzungaria and Kazakhstan, until construction of the Omsk fortress in 1716. The aim of this research is to identify amongst the finds the articles of Polish-Lithuanian origin, in outward appearance similar to Russian ones. Having studied the collections formed during the excavations of the fortress in 2007–2020, the authors came to the con-clusion that such items are definitely represented by the signet rings with nobility coats of arms, coins, and bap-tismal crosses made according to the Catholic canon. Potentially, Polish-Lithuanian origin could be assigned to some types of fabrics and leather goods, such as a travel compass case with images of French fleur-de-lis, some types of shoes, and handgun holsters. The presence of Venetian glass ware and plinth bricks in the layers of the 17th c., according to the authors, is also associated with the arrival in Tara of the population that had previously resided in the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or on the western borders of Muscovy. The owners of these items ended up in Tara (and in Western Siberia) because they were taken prisoners or sided with the Rus-sians during the Russian-Polish wars. Over time, they formed a special category of service people called ‘Lithuania’. This is evidenced by numerous written sources. The basis for this conclusion is given by particular characteristics of Tara's trade relations established, primarily, with China, Lesser and Greater Bukharia, and the Uzbek Khanate, i.e., with the south in the 17th c., from where Chinese porcelain, silk and cotton fabrics, and some types of smo-king pipes came to Tara. At that time, weapons, bread, coarse fabrics, money for salaries of the servicemen of the Siberian garrisons, and cheap beads were imported to Tara from the west through Kazan, Kungur, and Lozva. In the 18th c., the main trade of the Russians began to concentrate in Troitskosavsk (Kyakhta since 1934) on the border with Mongolia, from where tea, silk, and porcelain were exported, whereas a flow of Russian-made goods, as well as European wines, sugar, some species of nuts, and spices, was established through Kazan into Siberia. Instead of ’Lithuania’, Germans started coming to Siberia. In the 19th c., Poles reappeared en masse in Western Siberia. However, those were no longer residents of Lithuania and Western Russian principalities, but ethnic Poles exiled to Siberia for participation in anti-Russian uprisings.

Abstract This article focusses on the distribution of Sino-European books in the broad scholarly world: how did these books that are intercultural regarding authorship, content, and material aspect, reach their potential readers? And how widely were these books distributed? It investigates the extent to which these books were included in private libraries from the late Ming until the mid-Qing (1582–c.1823). Book printing had become very efficient in the second half of the sixteenth century and collecting books, both in printed and manuscript form, had become one of the favourite hobbies of (retired) scholars. Some of them accumulated very large libraries, and the catalogues of a few of these have been preserved. Thirty-seven of the still extant catalogues of these libraries contain references to Sino-European books. These references provide the opportunity to investigate the distribution of such intercultural texts over a span of two hundred and fifty years. This article begins with a general presentation of these catalogues. Subsequently, individual catalogues are described in chronological order. When possible, a description is included of the collector’s link with European missionaries or Chinese Christians, as it is through these connections that the intercultural encounters around these texts took place. Next, by tracing the frequency of appearance of the works, this article explores what the extant catalogues can tell us about the distribution of Sino-European books. Finally, the focus moves to the ways the collectors classified these works in their catalogues. By investigating the bibliographic categories, this analysis reveals the intercultural negotiations that took place in the creation of the Sino-European book world.

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of digitized specimen data and relevant literature to investigate the vascular plant diversity in Guangzhou City, China. Specimen data were collected from various sources, including the China Digital Herbarium (CVH), the National Specimen Resource Sharing Platform (NSII), Global Plants on JSTOR, and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Following data standardization, the study identified 41,890 vascular plant specimens, encompassing 248 families, 1563 genera, and 4536 species, including subspecies and cultivated plants. Among them, the native plants of Guangzhou city accounted for 60.6% of the species. The temporal analysis identified three distinct peaks in specimen collection: 1916–1920, 1928–1936, and 1950–1964. Collection activities were primarily concentrated between the months of April and November. The distribution of collected specimens exhibited significant variation among different species, with families such as Fabaceae, Poaceae, and Myrtaceae having the highest number of specimens. Similarly, genera such as Eucalyptus, Ficus, and Citrus were well-represented. The most frequently collected species included Litchi chinensis, Eucalyptus robusta, and Cycas taiwaniana. Remarkably, 21 species had specimen counts exceeding 100. Unfortunately, approximately three-quarters of the species had fewer than 10 recorded specimens. Alarmingly, 1220 species were represented by only one specimen. Geographically, the majority of specimens originated from the former suburbs of Guangzhou, Conghua Delta Mountain, and Liuxi River areas, while other regions had limited representation. In terms of specimen collections, the Herbarium of South China Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IBSC) recorded the highest number of specimens (13,828 specimens), followed by the Tree Herbarium of South China Agricultural University (CANT; 3869 specimens) and the Herbarium of Sun Yat-sen University (SYS; 3654 specimens). The collection history in Guangzhou spans nearly 300 years and can be broadly divided into two distinct periods. The first period extends from the late 13th century to 1949, primarily encompassing the collection efforts of foreign visitors in Guangzhou, and represents the pioneering phase of plant taxonomy research in China. The second period, from 1949 to the present, is characterized by extensive investigations and collection activities conducted by local scholars, with a specific emphasis on native plant resources. By meticulously organizing and verifying information derived from historical documents and specimens, the paper effectively summarizes the plant collection and research history of Guangzhou, providing detailed profiles of the key collectors. These findings furnish reliable historical reference materials for the study of plant taxonomy and diversity in Guangzhou.

IntroductionThe European will to modify the natural world emerged through English landscape design during the eighteenth century. Released from the neo-classical aesthetic dichotomy of the beautiful and the ugly, new categories of the picturesque and the sublime gestured towards an affective relationship to nature. Europeans began to see the world as a picture, the elements of which were composed as though part of a theatrical scene. Quite literally, as I shall discuss below, gardens were “composed with ‘pantomimic’ elements – ruins of castles and towers, rough hewn bridges, Chinese pagodas and their like” (McGillivray 134–35) transforming natural vistas into theatrical scenes. Such a transformation was made possible by a habit of spectating that was informed by the theatrical metaphor or theatrum mundi, one version of which emphasised the relationship between spectator and the thing seen. The idea of the natural world as an aesthetic object first developed in poetry and painting and then through English landscape garden style was wrought in three dimensions on the land itself. From representations of place a theatrical transformation occurred so that gardens became a places of representation.“The Genius of the Place in All”The eighteenth century inherited theatrum mundi from the Renaissance, although the genealogy of its key features date back to ancient times. Broadly speaking, theatrum mundi was a metaphorical expression of the world and humanity in two ways: dramaturgically and formally. During the Renaissance the dramaturgical metaphor was a moral emblem concerned with the contingency of human life; as Shakespeare famously wrote, “men and women [were] merely players” whose lives consisted of “seven ages” or “acts” (2.7.139–65). In contrast to the dramaturgical metaphor with its emphasis on role-playing humanity, the formalist version highlighted a relationship between spectator, theatre-space and spectacle. Rooted in Renaissance neo-Platonism, the formalist metaphor configured the world as a spectacle and “Man” its spectator. If the dramaturgical metaphor was inflected with medieval moral pessimism, the formalist metaphor was more optimistic.The neo-Platonist spectator searched in the world for a divine plan or grand design and spectatorship became an epistemological challenge. As a seer and a knower on the world stage, the human being became the one who thought about the world not just as a theatre but also through theatre. This is apparent in the etymology of “theatre” from the Greek theatron, or “seeing place,” but the word also shares a stem with “theory”: theaomai or “to look at.” In a graceful compression of both roots, Martin Heidegger suggests a “theatre” might be any “seeing place” in which any thing being beheld offers itself to careful scrutiny by the beholder (163–65). By the eighteenth century, the ancient idea of a seeing-knowing place coalesced with the new empirical method and aesthetic sensibility: the world was out there, so to speak, to provide pleasure and instruction.Joseph Addison, among others, in the first half of the century reconsidered the utilitarian appeal of the natural world and proposed it as the model for artistic inspiration and appreciation. In “Pleasures of the Imagination,” a series of essays in The Spectator published in 1712, Addison claimed that “there is something more bold and masterly in the rough careless strokes of nature, than in the nice touches and embellishments of art,” and compared to the beauty of an ordered garden, “the sight wanders up and down without confinement” the “wide fields of nature” and is “fed with an infinite variety of images, without any certain stint or number” (67).Yet art still had a role because, Addison argues, although “wild scenes [. . .] are more delightful than any artificial shows” the pleasure of nature increases the more it begins to resemble art; the mind experiences the “double” pleasure of comparing nature’s original beauty with its copy (68). This is why “we take delight in a prospect which is well laid out, and diversified, with fields and meadows, woods and rivers” (68); a carefully designed estate can be both profitable and beautiful and “a man might make a pretty landskip of his own possessions” (69). Although nature should always be one’s guide, nonetheless, with some small “improvements” it was possible to transform an estate into a landscape picture. Nearly twenty years later in response to the neo-Palladian architectural ambitions of Richard Boyle, the third Earl of Burlington, and with a similarly pictorial eye to nature, Alexander Pope advised:To build, to plant, whatever you intend,To rear the Column, or the Arch to bend,To swell the Terras, or to sink the Grot;In all, let Nature never be forgot.But treat the Goddess like a modest fair,Nor over-dress, nor leave her wholly bare;Let not each beauty ev’ry where be spy’d,Where half the skill is decently to hide.He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds,Surprizes, varies, and conceals the Bounds.Consult the Genius of the Place in all;That tells the Waters or to rise, or fall,Or helps th’ ambitious Hill the heav’ns to scale,Or scoops in circling theatres the Vale,Calls in the Country, catches opening glades, Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades,Now breaks or now directs, th’ intending Lines;Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs. (Epistle IV, ll 47–64) Whereas Addison still gestured towards estate management, Pope explicitly advocated a painterly approach to garden design. His epistle articulated some key principles that he enacted in his own garden at Twickenham and which would inform later garden design. No matter what one added to a landscape, one needed to be guided by nature; one should be moderate in one’s designs and neither plant too much nor too little; one must be aware of the spectator’s journey through the garden and take care to provide variety by creating “surprises” that would be revealed at different points. Finally, one had to find the “spirit” of the place that gave it its distinct character and use this to create the cohesion in diversity that was aspired to in a garden. Nature’s aestheticisation had begun with poetry, developed into painting, and was now enacted on actual natural environments with the emergence of English landscape style. This painterly approach to gardening demanded an imaginative, emotional, and intellectual engagement with place and it stylistically rejected the neo-classical geometry and regularity of the baroque garden (exemplified by Le Nôtre’s gardens at Versailles). Experiencing landscape now took on a third dimension as wealthy landowners and their friends put themselves within the picture frame and into the scene. Although landscape style changed during the century, a number of principles remained more or less consistent: the garden should be modelled on nature but “improved,” any improvements should not be obvious, pictorial composition should be observed, the garden should be concerned with the spectator’s experience and should aim to provoke an imaginative or emotional engagement with it. During the seventeenth century, developments in theatrical technology, particularly the emergence of the proscenium arch theatre with moveable scenery, showed that poetry and painting could be spectacularly combined on the stage. Later in the eighteenth century the artist and stage designer Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg combined picturesque painting aesthetics with theatrical design in works such as The Wonders of Derbyshire in 1779 (McGillivray 136). It was a short step to shift the onstage scene outside. Theatricality was invoked when pictorial principles were applied three dimensionally; gardens became sites for pastoral genre scenes that ambiguously positioned their visitors both as spectators and actors. Theatrical SceneryGardens and theatres were explicitly connected. Like “theatre,” the word “garden” was sometimes used to describe a collection, in book form, which promised “a whole world of items” which was not always “redeemable” in “straightforward ways” (Hunt, Gardens 54–55). Theatrum mundi could be emblematically expressed in a garden through statues and architectural fabriques which drew spectators into complex chains of associations involving literature, art, and society, as they progressed through it.In the previous century, writes John Dixon Hunt, “the expectation of a fine garden [. . .] was that it work upon its visitor, involving him [sic] often insidiously as a participant in its dramas, which were presented to him as he explored its spaces by a variety of statues, inscriptions and [. . .] hydraulically controlled automata” (Gardens 54). Such devices, which featured heavily in the Italian baroque garden, were by the mid eighteenth century seen by English and French garden theorists to be overly contrived. Nonetheless, as David Marshall argues, “eighteenth-century garden design is famous for its excesses [. . .] the picturesque garden may have aimed to be less theatrical, but it aimed no less to be theater” (38). Such gardens still required their visitors’ participation and were designed to deliver an experience that stimulated the spectators’ imaginations and emotions as they moved through them. Theatrum mundi is implicit in eighteenth-century gardens through a common idea of the world reimagined into four geographical quadrants emblematically represented by fabriques in the garden. The model here is Alexander Pope’s influential poem, “The Temple of Fame” (1715), which depicted the eponymous temple with four different geographic faces: its western face was represented by western classical architecture, its east face by Chinese, Persian, and Assyrian, its north was Gothic and Celtic, and its south, Egyptian. These tropes make their appearance in eighteenth-century landscape gardens. In Désert de Retz, a garden created between 1774 and 1789 by François Racine de Monville, about twenty kilometres west of Paris, one can still see amongst its remaining fabriques: a ruined “gothic” church, a “Tartar” tent (it used to have a Chinese maison, now lost), a pyramid, and the classically inspired Temple of Pan. Similar principles underpin the design of Jardin (now Parc) Monceau that I discuss below. Retz: Figure 1. Tartar tent.Figure 2. Temple of PanStowe Gardens in Buckinghamshire has a similar array of structures (although the classical predominates) including its original Chinese pavillion. It, too, once featured a pyramid designed by the architect and playwright John Vanbrugh, and erected as a memorial to him after his death in 1726. On it was carved a quote from Horace that explicitly referenced the dramaturgical version of theatrum mundi: You have played, eaten enough and drunk enough,Now is time to leave the stage for younger men. (Garnett 19) Stowe’s Elysian Fields, designed by William Kent in the 1730s according to picturesque principles, offered its visitor two narrative choices, to take the Path of Virtue or the Path of Vice, just like a re-imagined morality play. As visitors progressed along their chosen paths they would encounter various fabriques and statues, some carved with inscriptions in either Latin or English, like the Vanbrugh pyramid, that would encourage associations between the ancient world and the contemporary world of the garden’s owner Richard Temple, Lord Cobham, and his circle. Stowe: Figure 3. Chinese Pavillion.Figure 4. Temple of VirtueKent’s background was as a painter and scene designer and he brought a theatrical sensibility to his designs; as Hunt writes, Kent particularly enjoyed designing “recessions into woodland space where ‘wings’ [were] created” (Picturesque 29). Importantly, Kent’s garden drawings reveal his awareness of gardens as “theatrical scenes for human action and interaction, where the premium is upon more personal experiences” and it this spatial dimension that was opened up at Stowe (Picturesque 30).Picturesque garden design emphasised pictorial composition that was similar to stage design and because a garden, like a stage, was a three-dimensional place for human action, it could also function as a set for that action. Unlike a painting, a garden was experiential and time-based and a visitor to it had an experience not unlike, to cautiously use an anachronism, a contemporary promenade performance. The habit of imaginatively wandering through a theatre in book-form, moving associatively from one item to the next, trying to discern the author’s pattern or structure, was one educated Europeans were used to, and a garden provided an embodied dimension to this activity. We can see how this might have been by visiting Parc Monceau in Paris which still contains remnants of the garden designed by Louis Carrogis (known as Carmontelle) for the Duc de Chartres in the 1770s. Carmontelle, like Kent, had a theatrical background and his primary role was as head of entertainments for the Orléans family; as such he was responsible for designing and writing plays for the family’s private theatricals (Hays 449). According to Hunt, Carmontelle intended visitors to Jardin de Monceau to take a specific itinerary through its “quantity of curious things”:Visitors entered by a Chinese gateway, next door to a gothic building that served as a chemical laboratory, and passed through greenhouses and coloured pavilions. Upon pressing a button, a mirrored wall opened into a winter garden painted with trompe-l’œil trees, floored with red sand, filled with exotic plants, and containing at its far end a grotto in which supper parties were held while music was played in the chamber above. Outside was a farm. Then there followed a series of exotic “locations”: a Temple of Mars, a winding river with an island of rocks and a Dutch mill, a dairy, two flower gardens, a Turkish tent poised, minaret-like, above an icehouse, a grove of tombs [. . .], and an Italian vineyard with a classical Bacchus at its center, regularly laid out to contrast with an irregular wood that succeeded it. The final stretches of the itinerary included a Naumachia or Roman water-theatre [. . .], more Turkish and Chinese effects, a ruined castle, yet another water-mill, and an island on which sheep grazed. (Picturesque 121) Monceau: Figure 5. Naumachia.Figure 6. PyramidIn its presentation of a multitude of different times and different places one can trace a line of descent from Jardin de Monceau to the great nineteenth-century World Expos and on to Disneyland. This lineage is not as trite as it seems once we realise that Carmontelle himself intended the garden to represent “all times and all places” and Pope’s four quadrants of the world were represented by fabriques at Monceau (Picturesque 121). As Jardin de Monceau reveals, gardens were also sites for smaller performative interventions such as the popular fêtes champêtres, garden parties in which the participants ate, drank, danced, played music, and acted in comedies. Role playing and masquerade were an important part of the fêtes as we see, for example, in Jean-Antoine Watteau’s Fêtes Vénitiennes (1718–19) where a “Moorishly” attired man addresses (or is dancing with) a young woman before an audience of young men and women, lolling around a fabrique (Watteau). Scenic design in the theatre inspired garden designs and gardens “featured prominently as dramatic locations in intermezzi, operas, and plays”, an exchange that encouraged visitors to gardens to see themselves as performers as much as spectators (Hunt, Gardens 64). A garden, particularly within the liminal aegis of a fête was a site for deceptions, tricks, ruses and revelations, assignations and seductions, all activities which were inherently theatrical; in such a garden visitors could find themselves acting in or watching a comedy or drama of their own devising. Marie-Antoinette built English gardens and a rural “hamlet” at Versailles. She and her intimate circle would retire to rustic cottages, which belied the opulence of their interiors, and dressed in white muslin dresses and straw hats, would play at being dairy maids, milking cows (pre-cleaned by the servants) into fine porcelain buckets (Martin 3). Just as the queen acted in pastoral operas in her theatre in the grounds of the Petit Trianon, her hamlet provided an opportunity for her to “live” a pastoral fantasy. Similarly, François Racine de Monville, who commissioned Désert de Retz, was a talented harpist and flautist and his Temple of Pan was, appropriately, a music room.Versailles: Figure 7. Hamlet ConclusionRichard Steele, Addison’s friend and co-founder of The Spectator, casually invoked theatrum mundi when he wrote in 1720: “the World and the Stage [. . .] have been ten thousand times observed to be the Pictures of one another” (51). Steele’s reiteration of a Renaissance commonplace revealed a different emphasis, an emphasis on the metaphor’s spatial and spectacular elements. Although Steele reasserts the idea that the world and stage resemble each other, he does so through a third level of abstraction: it is as pictures that they have an affinity. World and stage are both positioned for the observer within complementary picture frames and it is as pictures that he or she is invited to make sense of them. The formalist version of theatrum mundi invokes a spectator beholding the world for his (usually!) pleasure and in the process nature itself is transformed. No longer were natural landscapes wildernesses to be tamed and economically exploited, but could become gardens rendered into scenes for their aristocratic owners’ pleasure. Désert de Retz, as its name suggests, was an artfully composed wilderness, a version of the natural world sculpted into scenery. Theatrum mundi, through the aesthetic category of the picturesque, emerged in English landscape style and effected a theatricalised transformation of nature that was enacted in the aristocratic gardens of Europe.ReferencesAddison, Joseph. The Spectator. No. 414 (25 June 1712): 67–70. Eighteenth Century Collections Online.Garnett, Oliver. Stowe. Buckinghamshire. The National Trust, 2011.Hays, David. “Carmontelle's Design for the Jardin de Monceau: A Freemasonic Garden in Late-Eighteenth-Century France.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 32.4 (1999): 447–62.Heidegger, Martin. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Trans. William Lovitt. New York: Harper and Row, 1977.Hunt, John Dixon. Gardens and the Picturesque: Studies in the History of Landscape Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1992.———. The Picturesque Garden in Europe. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002.Marshall, David. The Frame of Art. Fictions of Aesthetic Experience, 1750–1815. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2005.Martin, Meredith S. Dairy Queens: The Politics of Pastoral Architecture from Catherine de' Medici to Marie-Antoinette. Harvard: Harvard UP, 2011.McGillivray, Glen. "The Picturesque World Stage." Performance Research 13.4 (2008): 127–39.Pope, Alexander. “Epistle IV. To Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington.” Epistles to Several Persons. London, 1744. Eighteenth Century Collections Online.———. The Temple of Fame: A Vision. By Mr. Pope. 2nd ed. London, 1715. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Ed. Agnes Latham. London: Routledge, 1991.Steele, Richard. The Theatre. No. 7 (23 January 1720).

In 1981, Mattel introduced America’s first Asian Barbie as “Oriental Barbie”, described as “dainty and elegant … [in a] long, slender yellow dress”, with hair “pulled back to display her lovely face” (“Oriental Barbie”). Oriental Barbie is purportedly from Hong Kong, yet she is simultaneously marketed to represent the entire Orient in a homogenising, stigmatising manner that exemplifies Robert Park’s concept of the “racial uniform”. The back of Oriental Barbie’s box provides vague, generalising descriptions of “the Orient” that imply the purported superiority of the Occident: “in this part of the world, we eat rice with our meals rather than bread or potatoes. We use chopsticks for eating instead of knives and forks . … Chinese is a picture language … . Below are some examples for you to try” (“Dolls of the World Oriental”). Particularly with the invitation to “try” Chinese, Mattel invites consumers to participate in what Kevin Powell calls the “cultural safari”, a term that, broadly construed, suggests a “fascination with a facet of another’s culture” (Kasulis). Michael Kimmel notes that such fascination is safe precisely because “you can ‘take [the cultural experience] off’”. Although Mattel begins to produce ethnically specific Asian Barbies in 1982, Ann duCille remarks, “these quick-and-dirty ethnographies only enhance the extent to which these would-be multicultural dolls treat race and ethnic difference like collectibles, contributing more to commodity culture than to the intercultural awareness they claim to inspire” (“Dyes and dolls” 52-53). Because of this blatant cultural marginalisation of race and ethnicity that has been produced for years as a site of foreignness from within the predominantly cisgender, heterosexual, white United States and Barbie universe, I seek to explore how Mattel has perpetuated Orientalism through the production and marketing of Asian Barbies within their Dolls of the World series. The cultural marginalisation that Mattel creates through the marketing of Asian Barbies is accomplished under the pretense of increasing public knowledge and prompting intercultural awareness, which is stated on the back of Oriental Barbie’s box in a very literal interpretation of Powell’s cultural safari: “come visit the Orient. I know you will find it exotic and interesting”. The back of the box also contains a “miniature cultural history and language lessons” (duCille, “Black Barbie” 341) for the consumer to “try” with each doll from the Dolls of the World series. The particular “language lesson” featured with Oriental Barbie are Chinese characters that Mattel deems a fitting example of Chinese as a “picture language”. Interestingly enough, an exceedingly domestic overtone is at play with the selected characters: 媽 (mother), 爸 (father), 你 (“you”, but the masculine version of the pronoun), 房 (house), 玩 (play), 愛 (love), 喜 (joy), and 吃 (eat). The image of playing house and of a presumably heteronormative nuclear family seems to be strongly insinuated with this choice of characters. Furthermore, Mattel equates the Orient with “joy” by featuring the character 喜 (joy) alongside the word “Orient” on the front of the box. In observing the Oriental Barbie box, which states “Meet Barbie from Hong Kong” on the front and depicts the Hong Kong Dollar as “the Oriental currency” on the side, it is worth considering why Mattel chose Hong Kong as the home of Oriental Barbie. For one, Oriental Barbie is not entirely Asian in the sense that Hong Kong was occupied at the time of the doll’s release in 1981, which further complicates the issue of authenticity of racial and ethnic representation. Recalling the United States’ political relations with various Asian countries from the 1970s to the early 1980s may further contextualise Mattel’s decision to make Hong Kong the home of Oriental Barbie, as well as their choices behind which Asian countries to make an ethnic Barbie for. In the 1970s, Nixon’s ping-pong diplomacy had opened up previously fraught diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China. This change in diplomatic relations also facilitated increased cultural exchange between the two countries. In 1981—the year of Oriental Barbie’s debut and the year Reagan’s presidency began—Hong Kong was a popular U.S. tourist destination in Asia (Crouch 72-73). At the beginning of the 1980s, the Reagan administration’s decision to resist the Soviet Union also impacted on its diplomatic relations with Asian countries such as India, Japan, and China, each of which had varying opinions on how to deal with the U.S.S.R. (Greene 1). Despite differences in political stances, Mattel produced a Barbie for all three countries: India Barbie in 1982, Japanese Barbie in 1985, and Chinese Barbie over a decade later in 1994. Even 1994, the production year of Chinese Barbie, reflects the tensions between the U.S. and China in the early 1980s over the former’s arms sales to Taiwan and the two powers’ burgeoning partnership for “science and technology cooperation” in the 1990s (Minami 88). Contextualising Mattel’s potential reasoning for the particular production of these Asian Barbies allows us to understand why Mattel would want to offer educational content on these particular Asian “countries” (here a simulacrum with Oriental Barbie) to their primarily North-American based audience. Even then, Mattel’s intent to educate consumers through the reductiveness of their ethnographies contradicts itself, because the cultural marginalisation that results from the marketing and selling of Asian Barbies and the impact it has on the marginalised leads to a “self-contradiction inherent to the claims of civic functions (of furthering knowledge and enabling public enlightenment)—that accompany all imperialist establishments, even … apparently innocent ones” (Chow 95). Indeed, the “innocent” imperialist establishment of the child’s Barbie doll is not so innocent, as Jenny Wills reminds us: “sentimental, picturesque, and childhood playthings are not benign or devoid of serious racialized implications” (Wills 190). In fact, the name of “Oriental Barbie” or any other Asian Barbie “implies her difference, her not-quite-Barbieness”, which Wills first points out with the name of “Black Barbie”. Mattel demarcated a clear distinction between ethnic Barbies and white Barbies when it created and marketed the name of Oriental Barbie and other Asian Barbies. The positioning of Asian Barbies as an ethnic alternative thus creates what Wills calls a “scripted violence”, in which the relationship between white Barbie and ethnic Barbies “scripts racial inferiority upon those Other dolls and the subjects they are meant to celebrate and reflect” (Wills 189). The vitality of collecting ethnic Barbies as a business is deeply troubling, then, as it demonstrates both Mattel’s success in marketing Asian Barbies as an exoticised other and the many collectors who readily accept and contribute to this narrative. In fact, duCille reveals that “Mattel’s ethnic dolls — particularly those in its Dolls of the World series — are designed and marketed at least as much with adult collectors in mind as with little girls” (“Black Barbie” 339). Mattel media-relations director Donna Gibbs tells duCille that the ethnic dolls are actually marketed more towards adults, “‘although appropriate for children’” (“Black Barbie” 339). Gibbs lays out how Mattel strategically releases only “two or three different nations or cultures [for the Dolls of the World series] each year”, produces these “premium value” dolls in short supply in order to generate a competitive market for them, then retires them from the market after selling them for a mere one to two years (“Black Barbie” 339). Sure enough, Mattel’s marketing strategy proved successful: Westenhouser notes in The Story of Barbie that “the Oriental mold is a popular face mold to which collectors respond favorably” (Westenhouser 27). Because of Mattel’s strategic issuing of only two to three ethnic Barbies per year, “each year it becomes a collectors’ guessing game as to what countries will be this year’s additions” (Westenhouser 119). As a result, Mattel experienced a massive boost in sales through the marketing of the ethnic Barbie as a collectible. The treatment of race and ethnic difference as a commodified collectible rather than as genuine intercultural awareness is best evidenced by Mattel’s choice to produce Oriental Barbie—and all subsequent Asian Barbies, save for India Barbie—by using the same “Oriental Face Sculpt”. The “Oriental Face Sculpt” was introduced alongside the debut of Oriental Barbie in 1981, and although later productions of Asian Barbies in the Dolls of the World series expanded to specifically represent different Asian countries, such as Japan, China, and Korea, each Asian Barbie still used the same Oriental Face Sculpt. Augustyniak writes, “many new head molds have debuted since 1977, offering more variety and ethnic diversity” (8). When we observe the history of Barbie face sculpts, however, we find that many face sculpts have easily been produced of white Barbie over the years, with face sculpts even being made in honor of specific fashion designers or events, such as the 2013 Karl Lagerfeld, the 1991 Bob Mackie, and the 2008 Kentucky Derby. Meanwhile, the titular Barbie’s first two Asian friends both use the Oriental Sculpt: Miko (1986-1989), who is Pacific Islander (“Miko”) but was discontinued and replaced by Kira (1985-2001), who is allegedly of Japanese or Vietnamese heritage (“Kira”). These characters have only the Oriental Face Sculpt to represent their ethnic background, which itself remains ill-defined. With the plethora of face sculpts that have been produced over the years for white Barbies, one may be led to ponder why Mattel has not been willing to exert the same amount of effort to properly represent Asian Barbies. This is because for Mattel, profit always precedes any other motive, including racial and ethnic representation. As duCille explains, “the cost of mass-producing dolls to represent the heterogeneity of the world would be far greater than either corporation or consumer would be willing to pay” (“Black Barbie” 337). Hence, in order to generate profit, “racial and cultural diversity — global heterogeneity — must be reducible to … common, reproducible denominators” (“Black Barbie” 340). The Oriental Face Sculpt, then, is a result of all the “common, reproducible denominators” that Mattel deemed financially profitable enough to use as their attempt at racial and ethnic representation. The way that Mattel markets ethnic and cultural differences for Asian Barbies in addition to the use of the Oriental Face Sculpt, then, is through variations in skin colour and dress. For instance, Japanese Barbie, Korean Barbie, and Chinese Barbie all use the same Oriental Face Sculpt. The only notable differences between these dolls are the colour of their skin, the clothes that they wear, and their hairstyle. Indeed, duCille writes, while “today Barbie dolls come in a rainbow coalition of colors, races, ethnicities, and nationalities, all of those dolls look remarkably like the stereotypical white Barbie, modified only by a dash of color and a change of clothes” (Skin Trade 38). The uniformness of modularity with face sculpts, coupled with Mattel’s paltry efforts of merely altering the skin colour and clothing of each Asian Barbie, exemplifies Immanuel Wallerstein’s argument that “ethnicization must … be linked to the racism specific to the operations of modern capitalism with its twin objectives of maximizing profits and minimizing production costs” (qtd. in Chow 34). As a corporate giant, Mattel would not be enticed by the idea of adding “more complex, less easily commodified distinctions”, because these distinctions would require additional forms of manufacturing that complicate production and thus do not maximise profits for the corporate body (“Black Barbie” 340). Consequently, “ethnic reproductions [of Asian Barbies] ... simply [melt down and add on] a reconstituted other without transforming the established social order, without changing the mould” (“Black Barbie” 337-8). Mattel’s failure to provide racial and ethnic representation through Asian Barbies is best demonstrated, however, by a case study of India Barbie. India Barbie was released in 1982 as one of the first Asian Barbies, following the 1981 release of Oriental Barbie. Interestingly enough, India Barbie is the only Asian Barbie who was not created with the Oriental Face Sculpt. Instead, she has the Steffie face mold, which has been used with dolls such as: the titular Barbara Millicent Roberts, Midge, and Summer, who are all white; Teresa, who was introduced as Barbara’s first Latina friend in 1988; Christie, who became the first black Barbie in 1980 (“Steffie”); Hawaiian Barbie (1975) (Westenhouser 135); and Mexican Barbie (1989) (Westenhouser 121). Therefore, Mattel created India Barbie with a racially and ethnically ambiguous face sculpt that has also been used to depict white Barbies, which demonstrates the “relational proximity (or similarity) to [India Barbie’s] white doll counterparts” (Wills 189). The sari that India Barbie wears is additionally problematic in that it is worn inaccurately. Further, on the back side of the India Barbie (1982) box we see exoticising and othering language that insinuates the superiority of the Occident, as is the case for Oriental Barbie’s introduction. The way in which India Barbie is dressed with her sari is a far cry from how the sari is properly worn. What is also of interest is that India Barbie is wearing red and gold, which are colours typically only worn at Indian weddings. This sartorial choice may, at a first glance, be interpreted as yet another culturally insensitive blunder of Mattel’s, but when India Barbie’s outfit is considered alongside Japanese Barbie, who wears a red wedding kimono, and Malaysian Barbie, who also wears the semblance of a wedding garment, these choices of outfit begin to call into question why Mattel repeatedly decides to dress Asian Barbies in wedding attire. Mattel’s affinity for dressing Asian Barbies in bridal outfits can likely be explained by the corporation’s sales of wedding-affiliated Barbies, which have been some of the historically best-selling dolls in the Barbie universe. In the image caption for the Wedding Day Set (1959), which features the first Barbie wedding gown, Westenhouser notes, “always the top selling [Barbie] garment … is the wedding gown” (32). In Westenhouser’s view, Barbies wearing wedding gowns remain the best seller each year (32) because “every little girl dreams of the perfect romantic wedding and Barbie makes that fairytale come alive” (32). From a capitalist standpoint, then, Mattel is simply capitalising upon the supposedly widespread demand for Barbies in wedding dresses, and Mattel can only further ensure the financial success of Asian Barbies by choosing to dress Barbies such as India Barbie in semblances of wedding attire, even if these outfits are not culturally accurate or fully representative. Aside from the matter of dressing India Barbie in a red and gold sari, there is also the question of why Mattel chooses to focus on descriptions of Asian Barbies’ hair so heavily, including that of India Barbie. For instance, with the India Barbie and Japanese Barbie, Mattel uses nearly identical phrasing of the doll’s hair being pulled back to reveal the “delicate features” of her face. India Barbie’s description reads: “her long brown hair is pulled back, accenting her delicate features” (“India Barbie”), while Japanese Barbie’s description reads: “her black hair is pulled away from her face and tied with a red and white hairband” (“Japanese Barbie”). This diction first appears in Oriental Barbie’s product description, and it is especially interesting to consider why Mattel might emphasise the entirety of an Asian Barbie’s face being shown, almost as if to suggest that her face is so exotic that it needs to be fully on display for the consumer to get a proper look at the exotic “other’s” face. It seems that with Mattel’s emphasis on the entirety of the Asian Barbie’s face being revealed, ethnicity becomes “the site of a foreignness” that is a privileged society’s way of “projecting into some imaginary outside elements it seems foreign and inferior” (Chow 34-5). Throughout our case study of numerous Asian Barbies, Mattel’s portrayal of racial and ethnic difference has always been in a highly performative manner that has only been superficially signified through changes in skin colour and dress and the near-perpetual use of the exoticising Oriental Face Sculpt. These othering and fetishising attempts at multicultural representation create, as Wills argues, “exoticized difference, of deferred subjectivity; racial progressiveness [that] can be purchased and played with” (Wills 189) then cast off, as Powell’s notion of the cultural safari allows us to understand. Critically, Mattel markets these Orientalist depictions of racial, ethnic, and cultural identity as “marketable difference[s]” (Wills 189) that the white consumer can supposedly try on with ease and just as easily remove. Thus, with the production and marketing of Asian Barbies and other ethnic dolls, Mattel never truly accomplishes a healthy and helpful extension of the individual child as Ruth Handler envisioned all Barbies to be—instead, the corporate body only perpetuates a narrative of racial inferiority and the casting of Asian Barbie dolls (and, by extension, the Asian cultures, geographical locations, and populations that Mattel claims to represent) as the Other. References Augustyniak, J. Michael. Collector’s Encyclopedia of Barbie Doll Exclusives: Identification & Values, 1972-2004. Collector Books, 2005. 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